"Ocean,Kelp,Sky"

"Ocean, Kelp, Sky"
Acrylics and mixed medium

on Birch Panel
24" X 24"

I started experimenting with mixtures of Blues on a Birch Panel a while back.
The beauty of this method is that one never knows what the actual end result will look like.
You end up with what the paint gives you.

on this one I applied Gold leaf across one side on an diagonal
Let the whole thing dry, placed it on the shelf.

I then promptly forgot about it

until the other day.

While flipping through the Rack
I came across this one and thought
"Would a fish ever look great on this!
so I penciled in a fish.

I was at complete odds with myself as to how I would paint in a fish 

so it would look  like it was in actual water.

Not as if it had been applied atop the already prepared  background.
As a mixed media Artist, I collect things.

I collect a lot of things

and 

like a Raven or a Magpie, I especially love shiny things.

yep, Blue foil.

I then got the insane idea that I would cut out individually each strip of foil 

and compose the flowing fins as individual pieces.
Affix them to the background and have wonderful movement.

And I set out.

three days later I had a reasonable looking  Beta Fish

that actually had movement.

The next photo show the progress of this endeavor!

When the Fish was done I taped off the board following the Gold leaf

and

poured Liquitex pouring medium on the blocked off area.

You don't want to know how long it took the medium to dry.

You can see in the photo below 

on the upper Left corner how the area is now like Glass.

(reflection)

 I then  (again )waited for it to dry more.

after the Pouring medium was totally dry I rubbed a deeper blue over the Gold leaf

(Blue and yellow make green)

and had my kelp

the top right hand corner is a matte finish as opposed to the Glass like bottom with the Kelp as a separator

a rather poor detail of the beta Fish.