I had a nice sleep last night. No more of the UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN of the ocean from my fishing jaunt.

When I went to pick up my fillets from my cousin, he hadn’t started cutting up the fish I pulled in. So, nice guy that he is, he filleted it right there. It’s great to watch a professional at work.

He took the fish out of the cooler and flopped it upon the table. This little bit of skin caught my eye.

Fish Skin 1

I loved the blue diamonds, the iridescence and even the black patches.

Today’s experiment

First sketch:

I wanted so much to be able to recreate this pattern. Each diamond-shaped scale had its own peculiar details. In the first sketch of today’s experiment I made a sketch, scale-by-scale of this patch.

During the course of trying to figure out the shade of blue to use, I tried: turquoise, which didn’t work; cerulean blue, which also didn’t work and Peacock blue (by Holbein), which seemed to work when cut with white.

However, in the back of my mind, I thought there might be a chance to make use of glazes. In the sketch below, I overlaid lemon yellow with three different shades of green (sap green; Winsor green, yellow shade; Phthalo green).  You can see these patches in the sketch below.

Just as I write these words, I realize that I have to re-learn my color wheel. I actually tried to make blue with yellow and green! I’m so embarrassed. Blue is one of the primary colors that cannot be made from blended colors.

I really don’t mind making mistakes, although I rather they weren’t so blatant (or public).

Here is my first sketch:

Fish Skin 1
5″x7″ 140# Hot Pressed Watercolor Block

I glazed this patch with lemon yellow mixed with a bit of phthalo green.

Second sketch

I used a different cropping of the photograph of the fish skin for the second sketch. Here is the photo:

Fish Skin Patch 2

This patch includes a line at about one quarter of the way from the bottom. I believe this is called the ‘lateral line organ’ which detects vibrations in the water.

As with the above sketch I started the one below with individual scales. I started with the blue patch and used Peacock blue mixed with white. Instead of sketching the scales as I did before, I painted them as little right angles, which actually turned out to be semicircles.

The patches of black are also design elements as are the brown scales (for which I used burnt sienna). I must have been impressed by the glimmering scales, as I remembered my imitation silver gouache given to me a while ago. I applied this liberally, but it was no match for the real thing.

Fish Skin 2
9″x12″ 140# Hot Pressed Watercolor Block

I tried to keep the scaly pattern present, even in the spaces without scales: the black background around the upper portion, the silvery edges around the bottom.

This second sketch does not capture the same effect that the photograph portrays, however it still represents something fishy.