Exercise: Fish on a Plate

I decided to try doing this at the flat in Leeds as the flat is cooler then my house in Italy. The local supermarket, however had a very limited selection of fish (I was looking for mackerel or rainbow trout ideally) but I found some packs of two sea bass which were exceptionally cheap as they were at their sell-by date. There aren't any decorative plates in the Locum flat in Leeds so I used a large white plate but covered it with previously crumpled aluminium foil to add background interest.

I approached this exercise with a certain amount of trepidation. I was looking forward to looking at the myriad of colours reflected in fishy scales but I would have to overcome my natural aversion to dead fish. I'm not squeamish in general (my job involves contact with all sorts of bodily fluids and interesting odours) but the smell of fish has always had a direct link to my nausea centre. I can't eat fish if it tastes at all 'fishy', only if it is exceptionally bland and preferably covered in batter, deep fried and accompanied by chips, mushy peas and ketchup. 

The other source of my trepidation was that I have no experience of using water soluble pencils (except as normal coloured pencils without water) - but I thought this medium would be good for the subject as well as the rough texture of the Bockingford paper which I thought might help with the capturing of the texture of the scales.







Initially I was pleased with the medium as being water soluble it was somewhat translucent which I thought would be perfect for representing fins. I found that pushing the colour around with a damp, almost dry brush gave nice angular marks for suggesting the crumpled foil. However, the more I worked on this with layered washes of colour, the less lively and less interesting it became. The fish really did look very dead and in particular the top of the two which looked like a stiff generic 'fish shape'. It didn't relate well to the background and looked like a plastic fish. I decided to abandon this attempt and think carefully about what I really wanted to capture before trying again.

I decided that the aspect I was most interested in was the reflective and iridescent nature of the surface of the fish. Using water based-media I find it very difficult to maintain the highlights necessary for reflective surfaces. My experiments with masking fluid have not been successful as I usually manage to damage the surface of the paper. I therefore decided that I would either have to work back into the watercolour pencil with an opaque medium such as gouache or acrylic paint or try an alternative medium.

I also looked at how other artists had approached this challenge. I printed out a number of pictures and annotated them in my sketch book. I also printed out a section of a photograph of the flank of a mackerel which nicely demonstrated that iridescent quality. I used this picture as the basis for a series of experiments with different media.

 

 

I experimented with neocolour water soluble wax crayons and water soluble marker pens on both wet and dry paper. The colours were bright and bold but looked more like a profusion of flowers in a landscape than fish scales. Also as these media were water-based. I didn't think they would overcome the problem of maintaining bright highlights on the reflective surface.

I then went on to use soft pastels and oil pastels on a dark green and textured background. Both of these worked much better. The dark background provided good contrast with the reflective scales and allowing some of the paper to show through helped with the depiction of texture. The colours were nice and bold and I could  put on white really thickly for the strong reflections. I decided to use oil pastels for the second attempt at this subject because I have less experience with these than with soft pastels and this is a learning process.

This second attempt was done at home in Italy. It depicts a 'Spigola Mare' (I think that's a small sea bass) on a hand glazed Italian plate. This was altogether a much more pleasant experience than my first attempt. The fish was much fresher and didn't smell at all. I was able to work much more quickly than with the watercolour pencils and I think the result is much more lively. I really enjoyed using the oil pastels and found it much easier to give a suggestion of the reflections and texture of the surface with these.

I also find the composition more interesting than the first attempt. The background plate was also much more interesting and gave a good contrast with the fish as well as its colours being reflected on the fish's body.