Art in the field
Graham Stevenson’s life-size watercolours capture hard-won trophy fish in all their glory.
HEMINGWAY would have approved of piscatorial portraitist Graham Stevenson’s inspiration to paint trophy fish. Stevenson remembers: “I was in Dubai and racing my catamaran. It was too big really, so I switched to a smaller one and started fishing. I noticed guys with motorboats trolling for fish with handlines and a small lure, so I gave it a try. I was catching Spanish mackerel. Then I hit something heavy, which I thought might be the bottom, and then it moved, and it was a big barracuda – about 110cm – on the line.”
At the time, Stevenson was working as a landscape architect on the Creekside Park. He admits his catch caught him by surprise: “It wouldn’t go into the fridge, so I cut it into steaks. Then I realised I hadn’t got a photo of it. So I tried painting it from the head, which was still in the fridge, and painted the lure I had used. It was great fun. Then I caught a kingfish, which was far too large for the paper to paint. There was a shop selling big posters of Dubai scenes, so I bought one, took a door off its hinges, put the poster on with the plain side up and painted the kingfish on that.”
By now he was hooked: “I wanted to paint more unusual species, so I went to the fish market and bought big red snapper and painted them.” Stevenson met his Lebanese wife while in Dubai and says: “We went out to Beirut and I set up a practice there in 1995. Then we bought our cottage on the Isle of Skye in 2007 and I tried fly-fishing, which I had never done before. I went out with the gillie on the River Snizort and caught my first and only salmon.”
Of course Stevenson painted it, and mentioned to the gillie that he would like to paint more, which was when his hobby began to turn into a business. He was soon in demand to paint fish taken on the River Findhorn as well as many beautiful loch trout. The next step came when a friend living in Florida (Hemingway country) sent him photos of fish to portray. Stevenson was thrilled: “I hadn’t realised that you can fish for saltwater fish on the fly.” Then his friend and his friend’s wife went to Alaska and caught beautiful brown trout. “They also hooked a golden dorado and the fly, a Puglisi Peanut Butter, was huge. How do you cast that? I was told ‘chuck and duck’: you chuck it backwards and then duck as it comes flying back past your head. Then I was commissioned to paint a big steelhead. Some of the same friends went fishing for redfish in Louisiana. They caught one of 32in and two of 42in. I painted all three.”
Stevenson’s life-size watercolour trophy fish portraits present a number of artistic challenges. He explains: “I need to know which river and where the fish was caught – I research the river and find out the particular characteristics of the fish from there. I work to the measured dimensions of the fish and use software to help me build a life-size reference image before I start painting. Doing the patterning can be complex. I paint in layers with the initial washes, and then the detail of the scales and building up the reflections.
“I began by using Windsor & Newton watercolour block tablets but with a full-sized salmon or even bigger fish I was limited in how much I could cover. Then I was given a set of Daniel Smith watercolour paints from the USA, which have added an extra dimension. I use them sparingly and they have a wonderful vibrancy of colour. Combined with the use of masking fluid to achieve reflections and highlights, I can make the fish look so fresh and alive.”
Stevenson has recently submitted work to an exhibition to be held in Italy this summer, titled: The Art of Fishing: Fishing in Art. By the time his work is exhibited he will be back in Beirut, teaching ceramics. He is calm about the situation there: “You have to be a bit ostrich-like about it; otherwise you would be terrified the whole time.” For Stevenson there is only one drawback: “There is not much fishing in Beirut because of the dynamite fishing.” Graham Stevenson’s work can be seen at The Art of Fishing: Fishing in Art from 22 June at the Scuola Italiana di Pesca a Mosca, Abruzzo, Italy. Visit: simfly.it