Fancy Goldfish ~paper sculpt complete

I just put the finishing touches on this. I chose the warm palette because the coffee filters took on a yellowish appearance when the gloss medium was completely dry. I added two wooden beads I found for the eyes. The beads were red so I gave them a coat of Adirondack Pitch Black alcohol ink and glued them in place with Mod Podge. The entire piece is mostly Adirondack alcohol ink. I did add some DS Duochrome Hibiscus watercolor to the scales and DS Pearlescent Shimmer watercolor to the smaller fins. Painting on gel gloss medium is a unique experience. The watercolor pigments became permanent as soon as applied, which surprised me. I did have more control over the alcohol ink, though.

Fancy Goldfish ~ paper sculpt WIP 2

I've just completed the sculpting process. Yes! The head was formed using another coffee filter and the scales near the tail portion were created from printer paper with a hole punch. The scales on the forward area of the body were fashioned from 90# card stock using the same hole punch. I added another fin that drapes below the chin area using more printer paper. Now it's time to let things dry. The gel medium is still tacky and probably will be for a day or two. If we get the rain they're predicting it may take longer. In the meantime, I'm going to create a few sample sculpts so I can try out various palettes and mediums. 

Fancy Gold Fish ~ paper sculpt WIP 1

I fell in love with a gorgeous fantail goldfish I saw online so I decided to use it has inspiration for my next attempt at paper sculpting. I had the brilliant (?) idea to use coffee filters for the long, flowing fins. I think it worked out fairly well but now I'm not sure how to tackle the body of the fish. This will take some more thought. I'm working on Yupo again, using gloss gel medium as my glue and sculpting medium. I did use facial tissue for the small side fins. I wanted them to appear more delicate.

I drew a simple sketch directly on the Yupo with pencil to guide me. I can still see the sketch through the layer of tracing paper I put down for my background (because I didn't want the background to be naked Yupo). That was a huge relief. Otherwise I would be flying blind.  

Goldfish ~ Oriental Style

I've been browsing through Youtube looking at Japanese and Chinese painters in action. Some very incredible work going on over there! The style is so simple but so effective. There's a real art to keeping things simple. Every line means something and not a one is wasted.

Watching these artists, I was inspired to try my hand at goldfish. I know I keep saying I would love to paint fish but never seem to make it happen. Well, today I painted goldfish. I'm still working in a small format so this one went quick. Little space forced me to keep the detail to a minimum. This is mostly walnut ink with a bit of gouache and transparent watercolor here & there. I actually cropped the painting to include the Chinese word for 'goldfish' in the finished piece but my photo editor would not recognize the symbols. I finally just added it in English.