Christian's Koi

15x10.25 watercolor on gessoed watercolor paper, drawn and painted from one of my giant koi pond photos taken at the Las Vegas Flamingo Hilton.  Their darting about under the water seemed to go with the gesso streaks as if water was actually above them.
COPYRIGHT Kay Smith

Blue Koi

12x9 watercolor on Canson 140 lb cold press paper begun this weekend then finished today.  As part of a WetCanvas event, artists have 2 hours to choose an image then paint it so I chose this blue fish (courtesy Li Newton).  It was first drawn in ink in my sketchbook then traced onto the wc paper which had various marks on its surface from other works.  Touches of white gouache were used. A lot of work but a lot of fun!
COPYRIGHT 2019 Kay Smith

Sushi

15x22 watercolor on Kilimanjaro 140 lb cold press paper, another whimsical fish painting of different tropical varieties, totally imaginary.
Image COPYRIGHT 2017 Kay Smith.

Koi Fish Chimes

8.5x5.5 watercolor and ink on paper done last week on vacation.  These colorful ceramic fish chime when the sea breezes move them.  In the distance you can see an imaginary ocean and beach.
Image COPYRIGHT 2016 Kay Smith.

Fish: Chicken of the Sea

15x22 watercolor on 300 lb cold press paper, drawn with Micron 01 pen in about 10 minutes, then painted in 1.5 hours.  I was on a previous 2 hour timed painting exercise for WetCanvas.  I laid strips of cotton gauze (the kind we used to have in surgery called 'Kling' wrap) on the ink line fish sketch then spritzed green, blue, and yellow dilute watercolor in spray bottles, let dry, pulled off, then mixed grays for the rest. Splattering was done at the end. This was a lot of fun using Daniel Smith watercolors.
Image COPYRIGHT Kay Smith.

Kool Koi

15x11 watercolor on Yupo medium weight synthetic paper, drawn and painted today on the backside of another work.  These 3 guys look like they're up to no good swimming there in their own little world.  I used Daniel Smith transparent pyrrol orange, gamboge, quinacridone burnt orange and quin gold, yellow, UB, and American Journey Midnight Blue and raw umber violet.

Group Dynamic reworked fish demo

AFTER version, final touches added in this last step.  I borrowed a stamp that had small fish scales pattern and stamped into the blue head area with a mixed black; not much free space anywhere on this marked up fella!  Collage can be seen clearly now on white nose and mouth and large and small side fins.  The eye was adjusted and finally, I used black India ink only at random to outline shapes where needed.  In Doug Walton's famous words:  "Touch that which is most important the least, and touch the least important the most!" I've spent more time on the water area than on the grouper itself.  This was a learning experience for me as well as the class participants.  Here is Group Dynamic, 22x30 mixed watermedia, copyright Kay Smith.  Thanks to all the students who did wonderfully on their own rescue/recycling of old paintings into new works of art!

Fish Demo step 2

In this step, I've added latex acrylic over a wet area for the water, mixing 3 colors of paint, and can see the bottom right needs another application.  Its head is starting to resemble a puppy nose and mouth so the black will have to go!

Coy Koi Pond

15x22 watercolor on gessoed board, photographed at Flamingo Hilton hotel in Las Vegas at their koi pond within the flamingo wildlife habitat or sanctuary.