Great blue heron, 1996

Now we skip twelve years ahead to when we moved from upstate New York to Connecticut. I had by that time acquired water colors and a taste for Hiroshige whose wood block prints I had first seen in the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY.

We bought his book Hiroshige Birds and Flowers and I was very inspired by its 91 color plates. I decided to try and copy them into water color paintings which turned out to be much easier to decide than to do.

This first painting is of a Great Blue Heron fishing. Though Hiroshige never did this painting himself, it is in his style. I did three washes, one at the top for the sky, one at the bottom for the mud and one for the water line. Then I painted the bird and the cattails. I added some small fish for interest and because I am a fish fanatic. I was quite tempted to go at this painting with my India ink and draw all over it as I did with the little fish, but I resisted. Do you think I was correct in this decision and the painting is finished? Click to enlarge.

I’m not quite satisfied with it, but you know, the artist never is satisfied with their work. I think the composition is weak, it looks all pushed over to the right and will never frame well because of that. The heron is floating in the air and not grounded to anything. I could have done better painting his feet. I like how I painted the cattail heads and the washes and the bird’s neck. I would love to hear your comments on this painting.

Cock, 1993

Cock as in Hiroshige's Cock, Umbrella, and Morning Glories on plate 20 of the book "Hiroshige Birds and Flowers". I scanned the image, but the picture was too long for my scanner (click to enlarge):


I felt very inspired and wanted to see if I could render this via water colors. I of course simplified it considerably into just a wash and the cock and here is the result:



It is the only Hiroshige bird that I feel I did a good job with at all. It still needs to be framed and matted and would probably benefit from some tight matting at the sides to make it look narrower and taller. I particularly like the black tail feathers and the feet. Your comments are welcome.

This piece is now owned by Cristiano, who was born in the year of the Cock.

Blue Butterfly tail, 1992

Now that my graphic eye was turned on, I scanned the Chinese Goldfish book for another fish to paint. On the very same page I found one:


The book describes this fish as:

Variegated butterfly tail with reversed gills

But for me, the bright orange and white colors distracted from the strong graphic image of the fish. So I went with Payne gray in my water color interpretation of it. I also took another look at the anatomy of fish scales and devised a new method for portraying them. Here is the result (click to enlarge).



Again, I employed the dry brush method and used a wash with paint pooling for the eyes. I thought the paint would never dry and had a fear that I would smudge it, but that didn't happen. I like how the paint in the tail seems to be different colors, but it is not. It is all just Payne gray. I am in love with this color! I am somewhat happier with how the scales turned out, but not yet thrilled.

This is the mate to the Black Butterfly Tail. I wanted to paint a trio, and did attempt it, but it never worked out. As usual, your comments are welcome.

Black butterfly tail with bulging dragon eyes, 1992

Finally frustrated with pointillism, I revisited watercolors. I searched my books for inspiration and came up with this Chinese Goldfish book put out by Tetra. The wonderful thing about this book is that there are photos straight from China of the way goldfish are kept and propagated there and the way they were kept in palaces in ancient times when myriad servants were around to make water changes in the beautiful porcelain, marble, wood, pottery and earthenware containers. Of course all of the variations of goldfish are shown. This book really spurred my imagination.



My eye for graphics was grabbed by this image on page 67:



The book describes this fish as:

Black butterfly tail with bulging dragon eyes

An exceedingly rare variety of goldfish, renowned for its butterfly-like caudal fins. It is as black as traditional Chinese ink and has large protruding eyes. This variety of fish likes shallow water, only 10 cm deep. An adult fish measures between 15 and 20 cm.

I just had to paint this fish. So, armed with my black watercolor paint I had at it. This was the result:




I used the dry brush technique. In general I feel that I captured the spirit of the fish, but I am not happy with the scales, which I rushed because I was impatient to finish the work. I think that graphically the painting is a success. The final work is 13.5" x 10". Click to enlarge.

I would love to hear your comments.

Koi

All I can say is man, this one has my blood, sweat and tears in it. You cannot imagine how many studies it took to get this one to work. The central idea was that the magic of seeing a koi break through the water should be captured by the koi actually breaking through the paint. In other words, the body of the koi should be physically bursting through the paint medium, pushing it aside. My thought was to draw or paint the fish and then do a solid wash over them that they would burst through.

To get this to happen, I had to find a waterproof medium to color the fish with. So initially I painted them with water color and then covered them with wax. That looked terrible. Also I had to discover what kind of paper to use. A flat non-textured paper was needed.

Many studies later, I happened on Sean's collection of Berol Prismacolor pencils. They came in all the colors of the rainbow and excitedly, I hurriedly drew the koi. I taped the paper to my desk to prepare it for the watercolor wash and did the black wash. It totally covered the fish. I was disgusted. All my hard work went to waste. I waited until the paint was not runny and ripped it off my desk in anger.




Thank goodness I did not ball it up and toss it out because as it dried, the wax pencil cracked the water color paint on some of the fish. With the help of some gentle scraping with a palette knife, I was able to see the fish I had colored on the hardest and that had the most wax pencil deposits. So, I scraped harder on the other fish and am overjoyed with the final result. Click to enlarge.

Young koi

The date I did this piece is now in dispute. The signature date is 1983, but the copyright on the book I used is 1989 and I distinctly remember buying the book in San Francisco in 1989. So, maybe I did the drawing in 1993 and the signature date is incorrect? I also remember being a new koi owner at that time and that didn't happen until we moved which was in 1986. Okay, I'm glad I cleared that up in my head. The actual date I did this drawing is 1993, not 1983 as indicated on the drawing.

The drawing was inspired by the inside photo from this wonderful Tetra Encyclopedia of Koi which I first spied in San Francisco and bought on the spot. Since then I have used it as a guide to my koi keeping and breeding. Anyhow, as soon as I saw the photo of young koi on the inside of the hard cover, I just had to draw them. So I got out my Pentel color pens and had at it.



This was the result. Unfortunately, I really liked the drawing lots and hung it in my office at work where it got lots of natural light. Thus, the reds and oranges have faded terribly as has the blue that I used as a background.

Click to enlarge

So, everything that looks yellow now was red or orange at one time. The piece is just really less spectacular than it was but you get the idea. As a medium, Pentel color pens and pointillism were not the way to go for drawing koi because of the color fading and the time required. I had to find another medium to capture them.