Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Mayfly - Acrylic On Canvas

"Mayfly"
  Its a subject that only fly fishermen and entomologists get excited about.  In fact, if one would ask the normal human being if they would ever consider hanging this painting in their house the answer would undoubtedly be no but the those select few, the Mayfly is a thing beauty.
   They mayfly constitutes a bulk food group for the trout of not only North America, but the world at large and it is for that reason that we anglers love that odd little bug.  We read about it, study the different species, take time away from fishing to look for them, and have more than one photo of them in our archives.  The flies we tie and fish with emulate the wide range of species in our streams and we constantly search for new and more effective patterns that might deceive the mayflies primary enemy.  So, yeah, We love these little bugs.
    It is for that reason that I decided to sit down the day before Thanksgiving and paint a representation of the mayfly.  My wife may not get it but I am sure a lot of you out there will.

    Having recently completed a Tiger Trout painting using acrylics on canvas I thought I'd give it another go.  Using a very sparse palette of browns, yellows, oranges, and white I chose to use as little definition on the background as possible and focus instead on painting the mayfly.  I then went back and highlighted the areas I needed to with whites and blacks.  In the end its a painting that could easily hang over any fly fishermans tying desk.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody !!

"Mayfly"
Acrylic On Canvas
For Sale

6 comments:

B r y o n said...

Cool Mayfly!

cofisher said...

Wow, that's wonderful! Have a great Thanksgiving Joel.

The NOCO Nympher said...

Joel, Amazing mayfly! I am constantly blown away by your creativity and artwork! Top notch!
Happy Thanksgiving

Jay said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jay said...

It's been a while since I've checked in on your blog, but I dig the mayfly painting. Nice work!

Unknown said...

I appreciate all the comments guys. The mayfly is a bug we all like. I hope you all enjoyed the holiday.