Intricate Mermaid Shadowbox Art, Inspired by Sailor's Valentines

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Intricate Mermaid Shadowbox Art, Inspired by Sailor's Valentines

This is an intricate and beautiful display piece that takes the form of a shadowbox diorama. The scene depicts a beach scene at the waterside with a mermaid prominently sitting amongst an eclectic array of sea creatures and shoreline denizens.

The piece started out as a cigar box, which was then transformed into art using a variety of techniques (some influenced by the makers of "sailor's valentines"), including painting, decopauge, sculpture, found objects, and organics. For example, all of the sea shells are real and the majority were collected on local Florida beaches. The mermaid's scales are made of individual dried flower petals. There are too many embellishments to list, such as coral, sea fan, crab, sand, and more. There are literally thousands of tiny objects that make up this scene, with many layers and depth. The more you sit and look at this shadowbox, the more tiny details you notice - from the playful swimmers and fish leaping in the sea, to crabs and starfish hiding amongst the shells on the beach.

The sides of the box are covered in a sea-shell themed decopauge collage. The back side and remainder is painted sea-blue. It rests back at a slight angle, sitting on the sea shells affixed to the front, so it acts as it's own easel.

This piece was created by my wife Tina and she spent dozens of hours finishing the details on this work. Some pieces (such as locally-gathered and dried flower petals) required extensive preparation before use. Tina makes many shadowbox dioramas, each with a different theme, and no two are alike. This is a unique piece and is signed by the artist.

It measures approx. 8 x 7 x 2.5 inches in size. Refer to the photos. One photo shows the piece next to a standard-sized business card for scale.