Drawing Fish 52 Redfish. Was thinking of drawing nothing but a redfish tail “flagging” above the surface this week (with that tell-tale black spot), but then decided that I still wanted to see the head of the fish. Tried a sample sketch to see if might be able to really get a whole redfish. Didn’t feel comfortable going that route given the 30 minute time limit. So, I pondered some more, and then realized what I could do. I decided to draw a tail and head facing each other, playing off one another with a reversal of shape and direction. Like the end result. Thinking ahead to the permit drawing now (there will definitely be a permit), and how I may approach it (very much like this, I think, but perhaps a collection of tails, versus just the one).

Notes: Moleskine Watercolour Notebook again. Went fast and heavy with the lines (you can see how hard I worked the pencil to get the basic shapes down fast). Frankly, I just wanted to get the shapes more or less right and let some color fill in a sense of detail.

Once I got the fish’s head in place, I realized that I had drawn a big redfish, judging by the stocky/blocky shape and the smallish eye in comparison. I was okay with that (I had to be!). With the tail, I just tried to keep a generic, clean shape in place, but I wanted to see a spot that was half-in/half-out of the water, sort of winking at the viewer/angler. I managed to get it all in just shy of  28 minutes. My only problem at 28 minutes was that I was staring at two seemingly separate drawings and a lot of white space.

I decided to use the remaining two minutes to go for it with the yellow background. It worked, tying the two images together better, and giving some sense of a colored sky. I don’t like just charging in like that, especially when those two minutes of wild coloring could have killed the whole thing, but hey, this the “DF” project and sometimes you just have to go for it and what you get is what you get.

Tech info: Mechanical pencil, watercolor and Liquid Paper pen on Moleskin Watercolour Notebook.

Jeff’s Redfish is here. He went for the tail, too! Different approach, but we both had that tail in mind. Such an iconic aspect of this fish, really. Be interested to see how he handles a permit in the future (you already know what I’m going to do).