Wild Goldfish

6x6 watercolor over Pigma Micron 01 ink sketch I painted before while in Arizona.  Painting time was very quick using no color reference, just pure artistic impulse or intuition.
COPYRIGHT Kay Smith

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

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.

Goldfish Abstraction - Fishing for Compliments II

18x14 acrylics on matboard from an abstract underpainting using yellow, orange, and white Liquitex paints, similar to my first one.  Using phthalo blue and mint green I went around edges, negatively painting a goldfish shape, then added kelp seaweed in front of and behind him.  Fuchsia and olive green were other colors used for accents.

Christian's Koi

15x11 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.

Fishing for Compliments

From a loose acrylics abstraction to a vertical goldfish, 13x10 on Crescent matboard. This took 10 minutes to do the abstract and a few minutes to draw in colored pencil, then an hour to paint its background water and seaweed in Liquitex paints.

Finished Work: The Deep (brush only)

I added kosher salt, let dry, removed that, reapplied paint in some areas that were too light, then laid plastic wrap into wet paint. After that dried, lifted it off and did the spiky fish top right, bottom right one, the upper middle red small koi. Then far left fish with his mouth open and lastly the big guy in foreground. All developed using a brush, NO PENCIL, negative painting. I tried to lose edges, put darks next to lights, etc. No photo refs either. I re-wet top left and added salt again for texture. Lastly I splattered paint for bubbles as if underwater. Look closely you can see coral reef sticking up in the foreground. I'm sure it is full of mistakes but it sure was fun being creative and not copying photos for a change; this is real art folks!