Drawing With The Fish

Hi there, how are you?

As I said way back when, we have a year pass for the aquarium. That means lots of lovely visits to check out the fish.

1st. Sketches of fish done from photos. The photos were a bit blurry but I managed to get the overall shape of them.

The thing about fish is they won’t/can’t keep still so no sooner than you have the perfect pose than they swim off to the other side of the tank! This makes drawing fish at the aquarium a little tricky. That doesn’t mean we don’t try, we do. It just means we have to work faster.

In the coffee shop at the aquarium they have little port holes into one of the main fish tanks. These fish were drawn whilst we were having a cup of tea.

It’s better when there are lots of the same type of fish in the tank because there is more chance one of them will be in the same position you started drawing.

I was trying to get the shape of these fish with a paint brush. The tank and the room were in semi darkness and were only lit with a dull blue light (note to self: painting with blue paint in blue light does not work. pink does but they weren’t pink) Eventually I learned the lesson and drew them with a pen and coloured them later in the cafe.

We have taken photos but again, they are blurry because fish are constantly moving. I’m drawing at home from the blurry photos to try to get a feel for the shapes so that when I go back to the aquarium I have a better idea how to draw the shapes I’m seeing.

The latest sketch drawn from photos. I managed to get a better idea of the details with this one. These fish are not drawn to scale. The one on the left in reality is about three-foot long from tail to nose, the goldfish was the size of a fist ‘ish.

I really need to write the names of these fish down so I can remember what they are called.

Many more visits to the aquarium to come so hopefully I’ll get the hang of it.

Love to you all. Till next time take care and have fun x