Painting Fishes

Spawning salmon are like cartoon characters. In this painting I was trying to do three things. One, blend Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, and Payne's Grey together without making things look too muddy. Two, use kosher salt to add some texture. Three, get the eye right.

Painting fish is enjoyable. Probably more so than fishing, most days. I can see why Prosek does it full time. These two are mostly complete and need some details finished. Not by me, though.

Its difficult to make fish look wet. For me anyway. I tried using a razor blade after the paint had dried to make the long white streaks on this sockeye. Does it look wet?

Whales have a simple, iconic shape - the kind of paintings I liked to produce early on. This does a good job of illustrating my understanding of pencil shading. I figured I'd use black for the shadowed areas, the white paper in the light areas, and Burnt Sienna everywhere else. I had Kinkos make this painting in to note cards, which I sold at a couple of galleries along Chuckanut Drive.

This one made it into a juried art show at the American Heritage Center on the University of Wyoming campus.