A Fish Tale

A while back, one of the Art Challenges I've been doing required a piece about nature.  Even though I'd already done a fish themed piece, I decided to do another.  

The piece I had in mind was actually an idea that's floated about for a couple of years.  I've been wanting to do something for my friend Adam (husband of BFF Michele), who is an avid fisherman of the "throw it back" variety.  He loves to fish for the meditative and calming aspects of it.

So after finding where I'd stashed the nature/fish materials I'd gathered (stored, of course, in a safe place that couldn't be found easily), I started with an odd green banana paper sheet that I glued to a 6'x8' inch canvas.  (and why I bought this size I'll never know - it doesn't fit well into a frame)

I didn't want to leave the edges uncovered so I wrapped the paper around and glued the sheet to the back.  For once it actually worked neatly rather than me having to finagle about.

I had saved various scrapbook papers over the years for this project including some cool Australian nature paper from a mystery box I bought from Frantic Stamper.  I keep meaning to go back to this shop and spend money.  

  I had a vintage postcard showing a young man with his catch so I added that.

Then I decided to add Victorian scrap fish of different kinds to the collage, to create more interest (maybe I overdid it but I like them), and Voila!

What I didn't add, but could have, were plastic toy fish that I had bought from a neat shop in Providence, Rhode Island, called Shades Plus.  Yes, they sell sunglasses but most of their business is from the odds and ends of toys, decals, stickers, etc that they have tons of.  I hope the shop never closes.  It's been around for almost 25 years on Thayer Street. 

I will add these to something or other someday.  

The piece was met with approval by the Art Challenge crowd.  I hope you like it too.  Feel free to share any fish tales in the comments section.  

later,
lin

The Process Papers

I mentioned earlier that I'm doing an art challenge with some friends, and I wanted to show you the second piece in the series.  The theme was beach or ocean, and I decided to go out of my usual style of pretty pieces, and do something different.

My inspiration for this piece dates back to past ads for McDonalds' Filet O'Fish sandwich, actually,  The ad I remembered featured a fish singing a silly song - you can find the ad here.  I'm fond of ridiculously silly things so that ad stuck in my memory.    (The sandwich is one of the few things I'll eat at McDonalds).  I was inspired by other ads also.

The piece started out with me painting the water and sand.  I'm not the best of painters but I did my best.  I used a mix of acrylic and watercolor paint, blending the two.  I also mixed Golden's coarse pumice gel to create the texture in the sand to give it a more realistic look. That caused a few problems later.

Of course the first element I needed to deal was finding the fish.  I had several collections of Victorian engravings to choose from and enlarged them a bit for use.  I decided to color them with pencil to have them pop a bit.

After this, I winged it, deciding what to do as I went along.  I thought it'd be fun to add an illustration of an aquarium castle.

then I thought, what's an aquarium (or ocean floor) without plants

Then I decided on the placement of the fish

I hadn't glued everything down yet.  That's when the problems started.  It's difficult to glue paper on to pumice gel, so I experimented with various glues including gel medium, which didn't work.  I finally used Aleene's Tacky Glue which worked fairly well.

After I'd glued everything down, I realized the piece was missing something - a sea diver on the sand.  

And I added sayings - fish advocating that people eat chicken, pork, and beef, a plant demanding that people eat fish, which is also what the diver says.

I thought it was funny anyway.  In fact, the pieces makes me smile so much that I intend to do it in larger scale, hopefully better painted.  This was a type of piece I haven't done in a long time, and I'm happy I did something different than what I normally do.  The people doing the art challenge liked the piece a great deal, so I think it worked.

What do you think?  Should I do more like this?

later,
lin