New Zealand Rainbow Trout Watercolor

New Zealand Rainbow

  First off - Happy New Year!  Some of you might have noticed that I took an uncharacteristic hiatus from the blog and painting scene for the month of December.  Serving to not only recharge my batteries and give my family some much needed together time, the month of December was just what I needed to start off the new year ready to further expand my fishing and painting goals.

  So for the first painting of 2014 I started with a painting that was requested from a mother as a gift to her son.  A few years ago he took a trip of a lifetime down under and spent his time chasing trout under the southern cross.  She contacted me to recreate one of his catches as a watercolor so with photo in hand I got down to it.
  For many an angler - New Zealand is a bucket type of place to dream of fishing.  I can only imagine how amazing it must have been to hook into the legendary browns and rainbows that dwell in those storied waters.

  Someday I hope I can make it out there but until then I will satisfy my angling dreams with a little pigment and water on paper.
  After sketching out the trout I proceeded to drop in a few layers of light washes to build up color and give the painting a solid base to work from.

  The rest is just a matter of building colors and shapes.  I have done only a few paintings of river rocks with fish so I tried to focus on building a realistic representation of a fish suspended slightly out of the water.  Adding a few ripples of white and shadows of water on the fishes flanks helps to create the illusion.

If you would like to commission your very own wall hanger piece of art of a memorable catch, you can Email me here at hexfishing@gmail.com or visit my art site at HexFishing.com