The
weekly paintings I make for my fish-blog, are usually studies, made of acrylics
on paper. I bet you hardly recognize a fish in this creature at all. It's a so
called seadragon, a relative of the well-known seahorses and pipefish. Fragile
beauties, living along the coast of Australia, where they are considered
endangered.
For
these fish-paintings I use smooth watercolors paper. I think handmade watercolors
paper is too rough for the details I like to draw. Basically I start out with a
storyline for my blog. There are thousands of fish, so it will take me quite a
while to run out of stories. And the best part is, every year 200 – 400 new
species are described. How’s that for inspiration? Then I have to find a
picture which includes the essential details (fins etc.) to create my own
painted version. I start with a sketch (pencil drawing) to determine the right
size. Then paint a few layers covering each other to obtain the colors I want. The
process is a combination of techniques used for watercolors and acrylics. Like
watercolor paintings I sometimes leave parts of the paper untouched, these
parts are the natural whites. For other details, like the glancing eyes, I use
white acrylics on top of the black eye.
I
know I’m lucky to have many photos available to discover the details of a fish.
In the old days, ichthyologists had to create technical drawings of the fish
they described by using the real specimens saved in formalin. The blog entries I
create usually are close to reality. But whenever possible I’m not counting
every spine, ray or scale. So…back to reality. The queer fish in this blog is
newly described. It’s named the Red Seadragon. If you're interested, continue
reading my Queer Fish-blog for more details and the first description.