I seem still to be in child-friendly mode following completion of my Advent window display, swerving my darker material and going instead for images with bright colours, and in this instance, only hinted reference to the climate crisis.
Prototype demonstrating my inability to consider the whole object before investing in most of the drawing. There was a lot to like here in terms of colours and flow, and the scratching into wet medium to make patterns.But ignoring all that, this is collaged tissue paper on damp acrylic. And you’re all going to think I should have stopped here. But I didn’t.I have some gold paint that far exceeded expectations when I used it for my Christmas painting. This is good and thick and covers the surface well. Pebeo studio acrylics, high viscosity metallic, irridescent. You’d imagine it would have the colour name on the tube but I can’t see it. Luckily, my Amazon receipt isn’t so reticent, it says Rich Gold.I’ve soaked dilute colours into the tissue here, and emphasised the eye which, in fish, which on the whole don’t blink, are prominent and staring. I inadvertently made my fish cry by being too quick to add to the pupil before the rest had dried. I’ve used acrylic pen to draw round the eye and the lips, going for something straddling reality and ornament.Lights are always tricky. I was about to minimise these dots of white but then saw the unreality of them as another feature of fish. Not cuddly, not sit-on-your-lap pets, something that vegetarians sometimes inexplicably find acceptable to eat, almost alien even at the surface and much more so at depth. This is where the idea for the video began.Some tiny edits, mostly to the light in the eye.
Using the same image and making it increasingly less recognisable, I’ve aimed here to hint at depth and unrelatability by changing its position and using masks in PowerDirector to warp its shape. The eye is ever-present. Animation and effects layers in MotionLeap; audio by musician and artist Catherine Edmunds, with permission. There’s an additional layer of raindrops applied via Artivive when the image is viewed through the Artivive app.
Original image is acrylics on approx. 12.5×16.5″ paper.
Conboyhill Arts - art from stART to finish 
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