Haiku Art - Hungry are the Fish

Dragonflies Hover
Above the Waterlilies
Hungry are the Fish

by Jenny James

Who knew I could write poetry? There's a first for everything! My watercolour painting skills are constantly improving, proof that with practice one can achieve anything.

Here's how my page for Pam was created...

In the beginning... it always starts with scribbling out ideas on scrap paper then nutting them out in my journal.

Writing a poem with the correct number of syllables was interesting. Once I worked out what I wanted to paint or create (dragonflies and waterlilies) and realised it didn't have to rhyme, it was much easier.

It was planned to be a pair of giant gold fish swimming underwater, as viewed if you're also underwater.

Less is more... so I started with water and pencils as I'm always heavy  handed when I use paint. I then waited an eon for it to dry. Well, maybe 10 minutes...

Still trying to be "less is more" but pencils weren't giving me enough paint, so dug out my Winsor & Newton watercolour sticks... I've included this closeup to show the amount of paint used. I love the texture of pencils and sticks!

I painted more water onto the page and let it dry again... the second fish decided it didn't want to join us, so that's where the quote is going.

"Trust the Mess" ... that's what we're told to do so many times with abstract art and other types of creativity, but its as hard to do as waiting for paint to dry! lol :) Took a couple of hours this time.
This photo is showing what happens when you give up on micro layers and just go for it. Thank goodness its meant to be water hey? At this point, I was happy with the clouds and tiny forest in the background :)

This is my favourite palette! This pic was after adding pink gouache to the petals, brown to the stems and shadows in the water.
Things we take photos of when waiting (again) for paint to dry...!

I really love painting with watercolours... especially when its working! All that's left to do is all the bubbles, the fish's details and other bits and pieces.

Here fishy fishy... a giant goldfish eyeing off the dragonflies above the flowers. The bubbles have white paint pen highlights and brown paint underneath to make them appear round.

The above pic is my finished painting. Hope you like it Pam :)

Sorry, no progress pics for the dragonflies.... they weren't behaving! Thank goodness the turned out ok... quite happy with the wings.

I used more pencils and dry watercolours to add depth and shadow to everything. The quote is drawn freehand with pale blue pencil then again with black pencil. Then using the blue pencil again, I added extra words to make the dodgy bits look like they were meant to be there (of course they were).

Then the 3 little fishes with their teeny tiny bubbles were drawn in too, just because. The writing is all a bit crooked, but then again, it is underwater! lol

So that's my Haiku Art Page for Pam... Thanks so much everyone for reading my blog post. Hope it makes you smile!

Have a happy creative day!
:)
Jenny