KOI POND

(Click to enlarge view)
We recently attended a family wedding in Honolulu. While wandering through the Ala Moana Shopping center we came upon a pool of koi. The foliage around the pond was casting shadows into the pond. The tiles on the floor of the pond were a beautiful sky blue.

Kelli and I both took lots of pictures of the fish and this was one of Kelli's pictures with the foliage from one of my pictures.

I started by masking off everything that wasn't going to be blue. Then I put on a very wet light blue wash. After that dried, I masked off everything that was going to stay light blue and added another wash of a darker blue. I darkened the shadows under the fish and then took off all the masking.

Next I painted the fish layering in a bright orange. I shaded the lower sides of the fish to give them depth and I added black spots and highlights. I painted the leaves on the right in a variety of light, mid-range and dark greens. Finally I added some highlights on top of the water to help make the fish look like they are under water.

We're going to hang this painting in our house as it represents a wonderful family vacation.