I am so excited to be sharing this mermaid tail painting project that is just perfect for summer! It’s a fun and easy craft to take on during this time of year.

My mermaid tail painting is very beginner-friendly art that anyone can create! It’s a great project to try whether you are making it with your children or using it for one of your paint parties!

How To Paint A Mermaid Tail Painting

Want to learn how to make your own mermaid tail art piece? Here are the steps to take to create this beautiful and magical painting!

1. Choose Your Colors 

The first thing that you want to do before you start painting is pick out the color palette for your mermaid tail craft. I chose blue and green for a classic mermaid color scheme, but you can get as creative as you like!

If you want to paint a pink and orange mermaid tail, do it!

2. Add A Base Coat

To begin painting, you will want to add the basecoat, which is going to be the backdrop for all of the little details.

I created my base coat by painting a light bluish-green color at the top and a darker blue color at the bottom. This created an ombre effect towards the bottom of the tail. Try painting a nice ombre transition on your own mermaid tail project so that the scales will have a beautiful color base behind them!

3. Paint In The Scales

Now that the base coat is finished, we can start to paint the scales. Please don’t let this part intimidate you; it’s really easy, I promise!!

All you need to do is use a small detail brush and some black paint to create ‘U’ shapes all along the tail to imitate scales. Begin at the top and work your way towards the bottom. Try to keep the scales as close in size as possible.

Don’t worry too much about it being perfect. It’s going to turn out beautifully either way!

4. Paint The Fin

With the scales done, now we can start to work on the details of the fin. This part is also really easy to paint!

All you need to do is create swooping lines, making sure that they show the two fins being separate. No need to overthink this part – just make some swooping lines to imitate the details of a fin! You can add as many lines as you like to achieve more (or less) detail.

5. Add Details To Your Mermaid Tail Painting

Now that we’ve got the foundation of our painting done, we can add in all of those amazing details to really bring it to life!

To add the scale details, I used margarita, which is a lime green color, along with white and purple. Add little swoops at the bottoms of the scales for some added dimension, slowly adding in the different colors. This imitates a reflection glinting off of the scales.

If you want some extra magic, you can use gold or silver dust over the scales to give them extra shine and sparkle! You can add this to the tail as well as in the swooping lines to further enhance the detail. For even more, you can paint on some swooping lines and dots in white paint onto the tail as well. This makes it pop next to the shimmering scales!!

Video: Watch How to Paint a Mermaid Tail

Join Paint Party Headquarters!

For more details on how to create your own painting party business, join the Paint Party Headquarters.  Because yes – it is possible to make a living as an artist!!

Also, for more tutorials on painting and running a painting party business, you can follow my YouTube channel.

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