2016 Museum Show

These are from the show I had at the Museum in Lovington two years ago. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

Here is the Koi pond installed in the kitchen. I think it looks great!

These are the finished Koi Pond. To follow will be floor cloth installed!

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Clearly I'm having a hard time photographing this behemoth. Hopefully you can get some sense of the whole through the series of photos. The last is a close up of the dragonfly in the middle. I'm nearly finished. There a just a few places that need a bit more glaze and then the final varnish coats. I really need a studio! I'm trying to figure out the best way to Varathane (oil-based floor varnish) without poisoning me and Zack, since this fills the entire Living Room and I cannot do it outside. I skipped over the whole part about struggling for three or four days with acrylic paint. It's fine for the base coats of everything, but when you get to painting details and modelling, nothing beats oil. Acrylic paint made me think I'd forgotten how to paint. So I finally switched over to oil and voila! Here she is - nearly finished.

I drew these flowers with color pencil on paper. Then I did a transfer with acrylic gel medium and rubbed the paper off of the back. They were adhered to the surface with more acrylic gel, and have now been painted over with oil.

Testing Flowers

I've got most of the patterns painted on the fish and I'm starting to figure out where I want to put the flowers. The dragonflies will be next. I started out with too many, I think and it was looking crowded. I'm going to reduce the number of flowers and get them painted on, at least base-coated, before I decide on the dragonflies. I'm not happy with the pinkish-white curvey fish in the middle; he's sort of a conglomeration of a few different fish and he's just not working. I'm going to sand him down and paint over him with something better. Then I'm going to give the modelling another go using the base colors as value. That will integrate the fish with the water, soften the edges and give them more form.

Ten Fish - Four Days

I started on what I'm calling the east end of the runner. I decided to try to get three fish a day painted. I started out by building the shape of the fish with white paint and adding some of the background color for some of the shading, in the hopes that it helps to give the effect of water. You can only really see it on the one fin; I'm still working on them. I went ahead and mixed a very dark color for the black and started to put in some of the patterns. I'll mix the orange tomorrow and add those patterns to the black. Here you see the east end - approx. on quarter of the runner, plus three close-ups of the fish in progress. Looks like I'll have to amend my deadline or paint faster! :D