Cannot get enough of the Big Fish

I can’t get enough of these koi so, what the hey, I started another big drawing.  My life is becoming a fish bowl.

Adding Fish to the Pond

Did a little reorganizing today so that I could move the big koi drawing to a different wall.  It gets the drawing away from direct light and sets it beside the next big drawing in the series.  I added some new fish at the bottom.  So everybody’s in the pond now, I think. 

Once everything that’s going to be in a picture is in it, work takes a new direction.  Then it’s nuance time. 

I like nuance time.

A Couple of My Models say “Hi”

You cannot not love these guys … with faces like these.

Falling into the Koi Pond

I’ve been painting and drawing koi again.  I have so many paintings and drawings around me, I almost feel as though I have the koi pond in my studio.  Drawing the water, the fish and the reflections is mesmerizing.  And with no pun intended, I must say that so far I only skim the surface of this koi pond.  The relationships between water, light and the passage of time, the movement of the fish in their fish world, these are weighty matters that I cannot penetrate in my pictures just yet.  But I contemplate it daily. 

I’ve gone fishing.

One swims up, one dives

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If you’re an artist, you need never leave childhood behind.

This story has a childlike appeal too.  One fish swims upward and the other dives.

Very Orange

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Once you decide it’s going to be orange, there’s just no turning back.

A Sense of Scale

Well, here I am pretending to draw on this thing just like in the art books!  But this is just a photo op.  It does provide a sense of the drawing’s size, though.  The lines, the smears, the hatchings are all fairly largish.  My fishes are the same size as the actual koi — the “little guys,” that is. 

The koi that we nicknamed “Moby Dick” would require an extra-large sheet if one were to  portray him in his full grandeur!
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Janos Starker helped with the Dark Colors

By the time I started work on the darker colors I was listening to Janos Starker on the “boom box.”  It’s hard not to make rather vigorous stokes when Janos Starker bows such vigorous strokes.

My orange fish got so orange that I forgot all about his lovely tail.  It becomes reduced to just a slender cylinder.

Meanwhile, the dark fish seems to leap even more swiftly in this version.  All the fish were swimming to Kodály by this time.

To have a listen for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCB9X9a77uU

Silk Colors

Color conveys mood.  One question I begin my koi paintings with is what color blue will predominate?  For this particular painting my studies help me decide whether one fish (now in a leading role) will be a soft pale orange or a richly saturated orange.  The color of the fish is especially important since orange and blue are optically opposite.  If the fish is richly colored he will stand out in a maximal way, and if he is a quietly pale orange he will make a much less forceful impact. 

I’m thinking this little fish deserves a big personality, but I’m trying to make certain the whole painting will balance.  This study tries the quieter color.  It’s also the first time I’ve dealt with the dark fish who dives downwards.

Being Studious

Today was drawing day.  I made three studies for the koi paintings.  The freedom of drawing is exhilerating.  Beginning an idea from the blank page always delights me, but I am supposed to be finishing paintings.  Well, this way I get to eat my cake and have it too.  I am “working on” the painting — indirectly.  I am trying out ideas, rehearsing my lines, all of which gives me necessary practice for the painting.  But I still get to begin from blank.

The version above is a compositional sketch for the whole painting.  In the next couple posts I make studies of the group around the dark fish.