Today’s watercolor experiment:

I’m trying to wean myself away from petals. Those of you who have been following my blog lately know that I have been painting succulents and succulent flowers for a while now (Hockey Brush, Abstractish Succulent, Unknown Succulent, Another Stab at It, If You Can’t Sing Good…, Yellow Succulent Flowers, Again, Into the Breech, Yellow Flower – Final, and yesterday’s Fantasy on Impossible Petals and Pointy Leaves). I didn’t realize I painted so many petal-related paintings. I suppose I am a bit on the obsessive side.

Today is (hopefully) my swan song for succulent petals for a while. Make that swan dive. I decided to invent a new kind of fish that uses petals to imbibe nutrients; a solar paneled fish if you will. Perhaps the petals drop off, forming fish seedlings. I haven’t decided yet.

The fish pictured below is in a resting state, sunning itself. The petals are in a relaxed, curled state. If the fish is startled, one flip of its powerful tail will speed it on its way. The petals will fold against the body – even the forward-pointing (small blue-yellow-green) ones.  These specialized petals also act as brakes to slow the fish down when needed.

Petal Fish
9″x12″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Comment:

I got the inspiration for this study after flipping through some of my old painting. One year and one day ago, my watercolor experiment was a study of fish scales (Blue Diamonds). The shape and shading of the scales reminded my of flower petals (actually, most things to these days, given my obsession). Thus, my hybrid animal.

I used generic reds, oranges, yellows, greens and blues for this study. Sometimes I squeeze out too much color in a plastic palette. I hate throwing color away, but I don’t label the palette impression with the name of the color. However, they did seem to do the job.

Shading studies?

I am still doing my shading practice, but will accumulate them for a later post.