Fish Paintings

Here is the latest page in my art journal.  I took pictures of it along the way so I could explain the steps.

Step One:  I painted watercolors of fish directly into the book, then photographed them so I could print the photos smaller onto cardstock.

Step Two:  I photocopied sheets of old stamps, coins, and Egyptian money, then made a collage.

Step Three:  I covered the entire thing with green tissue paper. It didn’t look very good, so after I did that I tore it off, leaving only three stripes.  After that, I painted it with a wash of half green acrylic paint and half translucent acrylic medium.

Step Four:  I had a photo to work from, and I started by sketching it on another piece of paper before concluding that it would look better drawn directly onto the page.  I tried to color in the flesh with a colored pencil, but it’s difficult to draw on top of acrylic.  I painted the shirt in with acrylic, then used a combination of soft graphite and sharpie marker to draw the outlines.  I adhered the fish with acrylic medium, and drew around them with marker and graphite to make them stand out.  You can still see some of the fish underneath.