Is four today's blogging theme? I just posted four abstracts I painted over the course of last winter. My idea was to redo some of my favorite old paintings using Van Gogh's and Hiroshige's style of painting and design. In this example I was working off 'The Fish Catchers' from 2007, the new sketch has a brighter colour scheme, and an elaborate perspective. 'Falling Fish 1' 5x7" cold press, watercolour, 2019
Clearly there needed to be more falling fish in this painting! Actually this one was painted first, and I decided to reduce the number of fish. The bridge is also further away here. By creating a 'bird's eye' perspective like this, it places the viewer up in the sky with the falling fish. This means you, the viewer, are one of the falling fish. 'Falling Fish 2' 5x7" cold press, watercolour, 2019 (on the back of falling fish 1)
And then there was one. The perspective here places the viewer (you) down on the shore, looking up at a falling fish. Maybe you are the fish catcher now? Just by changing perspective, it alters the narrative, the feel. In the first designs the viewer is falling from the sky, here, they are safely on the ground. 'Falling Fish 3' 5x7" cold press, watercolour, 2019
The last version contains a background scene inspired by Hiroshige's Nihonbashi bridge print in his 'Great Tokaido series. It uses a grounded perspective suggesting that the viewer is one of the fish catchers. From these studies I learned that perspective can be manipulated to put the viewer in different situations. You can feel like a person, a bird, a cat, or even a flying fish! 'Falling Fish 4' 5x7" cold press, watercolour, 2019 (on the back of falling fish 3)
There are also a large number of pencil sketches in my sketchbook that I worked on before (and between) doing all of these paintings. Perhaps this winter I will tackle it again and see if I can create a large, finished piece of artwork.
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