Demonstration

ƒ Step 3

1 To paint the water just below the surface, I mixed phthalo green with titanium white and a touch of cadmium yellow light.

2 I then introduced phthalo blue and titanium white and darkened the blue as the water became deeper.

3 For the sea floor, I used raw umber and titanium white applied with rough and chunky horizontal brushstrokes to indicate an uneven sandy surface.

4 As the sea floor recedes into the distance, I layered on some of the blue underwater colour. Step 4 „ 1 When the background painting was dry, I added the fish into the scene. To avoid mistakes in drawing and positioning them, I first drew the fish to scale on paper then, with Blu-tack, played with the placement of each fish until I had a pleasing arrangement.

2 I slipped a small piece of black transfer paper face down underneath the drawings and traced the outline of each fish onto the painting using a ballpoint pen.

Step 5

ƒ 1 The white areas of each fish were painted with a small flat brush and fine liner brush. This single coat would act as the white areas in shadow. A second coat of white will be applied later in areas that need to be highlighted.

ƒ 3 To create a sense of volume in the fish body,

I painted a second coat of white along the body just below the top fin, the top part of the lower fin and on the face.

4 I lightened the grey from instruction 2 (above) and applied a crescent in the lower left portion of the eye.

5 This light grey was also used to create the transparent looking fin on the side of the body, and for the ridges in the tail.

6 Notice how I also blended light grey along the top part of the lower fin over the black to continue the three-dimensional effect.

7 Cadmium yellow light was used to paint the yellow sections.

8 To complete the fish, a sparkle of white was added to the upper right portion of the eye.

 2 I blocked in the black areas of each fish. Grey for the iris of the eye was made by mixing black with white.