Getting in a flip flap

Arrived at work this morning to find I had left my "short-range" glasses at home! There were no jobs I could do until lunchtime, that I wouldn't need them for, when I could drive back home to get my glasses, so I had no choice but to go home straight away to retrieve them. I dropped a couple of things up to the Maintenance Department before I took the journey home.

The cats were surprised to see me and stared at me blearily from sleepy faces as I dashed past the bedroom where they were both lying on the floor in the sun. Grabbing my glasses from my room I bid them a hasty goodbye and headed back to the zoo. In all my little excusion took 50 mins, time which I made up later as I worked through my lunch break.

Now I could get back to the illustration I started yesterday the flagtail characin. I looked at the photos I had taken of this fish and picked out the colours I could see on its silver reflective scales. I then lay in careful washes of colour over the pale base colour I lay down yesterday, using the colours to create the form of the body shape.


Then with a watery mix of mid green I started outlining the individual scales.


I got part way to covering the body in these outlines when I realised it was all going wrong, I tried a few times to correct it but in doing so I was ruining the lovely washes I had done. The scales have a specific pattern and size so it was important I get the look right. The line of the scales as they go over the body and the varying sizes also indicate the body shape beneath. I decided to try the other approach I had thought about previously, so made the sad decision to paint out the wonderful colour array I had done. So with a greyish purple mix I covered all those lovely colours, leaving me with a dark fish shape instead.

So now the approach would be to paint in the curve of each scale. Easier said than done.... I battled with the patterning all day, trying differing ways of achieving it. I'd be happy that I was getting it right until I'd put it at arms length and looked at it carefully and then I'd notice that I had painted the scales too big, or too randomly, or not in the right pattern or not depicting the body shape.... blah, blah, blah! It was driving me nuts and making my eyes go squiffy and my brain to mush! A couple of times I walked away completely and took a wander to try and clear my head and come back refreshed. Didn't work... so I was glad when 5.30 came and I could go home. I had had enough.. hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.