New Painting - Kohaku Koi and some cool fx...

This week's blog will focus on a new painting I completed last week. The source photo was from a library book from the pets section about keeping Koi. I like the shape of Koi with their plump bodies and bright splotchy colours on their heads and I've been wanting to do a couple more fish paintings for a while, as there were a few people interested in an old fish painting I did some years ago which I wont sell because it was more of a practice thing on scrap paper. Anyway, this one is on good quality Arches 300gsm cotton paper and I'm using Artists Spectrum watercolour paints.

Here are some photos of the process. The form of the body was important at first with a light wash of lemon yellow colour. Next the tonal / darker areas were overlayed with a red Gold colour. 

Next for the red splotchy part - it was important to get the right shade of red - I didn't want it too pink or crimson, so I tested all the reds on scrap paper first to get the right shade. I ended up just using spectrum red but making sure it wasn't too watered down. I've also sprinkled salt on the head area which will make white splotchy effects when it dries.  Next for blue highlights along the fins and body.

The next step is the background, so I washed the background with clean water using a large brush and while it was still wet, added some blue and green wash for the water. Then while everything was wet, I overlaid some cling wrap and scrunched it up as you can see in the photo. I waited an hour or so until everything was completely dry before removing the cling wrap and brushing the salt off for a few neat fx. Voila !