More Fishy Business!

For over a year now, one of the most popular posts on this blog has been my tutorial on how to do a fish stencil.  I keep meaning to find out just where all the traffic comes from!

Anyway, This summer I decided I was sick and tired of the koi carp stencilled in our main bathroom, plus the paint on the wall above the bath was getting chipped and looked bad.  So I initially started by painting the wall in a contrasting blue to the rest of the room - it turned out a bit darker than the paint looked when in the shop under flourescent lights.  I had to leave it for a couple of weeks to see if I really liked the shade before going any further with it.  Luckily it grew on me!

Then over the past few days I have been working on a much bigger version of the shoal of fish we have in the downstairs loo. It took a few days because the actual stencil is in a rectangular shape, which doesn't look natural, so I wanted to add extra fish and in order to get them looking a bit more random, I also wanted to reverse the stencil in places.  After a while, the paint builds up and gets sticky, so the stencil has to be allowed to dry before being used again.  I think this is finished, although I shall contemplate it while in the bath or sitting on the toilet (as you do...) and think about whether it needs any more fish.  For now, however, it's fine.

The painting of Troy is coming along nicely - this week I have been working on the background a bit more before carrying on with the dog.  I want him to look like he is in the garden, not like a cardboard cutout laid on top of a garden picture, so it is necessary to get the background in now to eliminate any harsh edges when painting the dog.  It's all a matter of juggling..

One the needles this week - a picnic table!