One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish

Apologies to Dr. Seuss! The other day I bought some bream for our supper the next day. They were so pretty that I suddenly remembered a Japanese artist's work I had seen on a blog whereby he had made fantastic prints using dead fish. I thought I'd have a go........


First I prepared some sheets of paper by laying down a pale turquoise watery wash.


One one of them I laid a couple of sheets of cling film and allowed the paint to dry - it's a great technique for creating a watery texture.


Then I washed the fish, patted it dry and proceeded to paint it with a diluted Indanthrene Blue acrylic mix. Rather than press the fish on the paper, I pressed the paper on the fish, grateful that the previous washes had left the paper more pliable.


I made several sheets of prints and this was about the best one - luckily it was on the cling-film textured sheet. It was all a bit disappointing - I think the trick the Japanese artist had was to use a larger fish with more defined scales.


Finally, when it was all dry, I used indigo watercolour to go around the outlines and emphasize various features - fins, a few scales, eyes. I also brought out the lovely flowing shapes of the background with a deeper turquoise mix and a little indigo.

It's not exactly what I had in mind, but was a fun experiment - don't think it will be repeated however.

We didn't eat this particular fish you'll be glad to know! The ones we did eat were delicious.

Now what's that funny smell............