Drawing Fish & Flies 52 Bonefish (Hawaiian). This is an image based on a photo sent to me by my friend and Hawaiian bonefishing guide Coach Duff. Coach has access to some of the consistently biggest bones on the planet, and he sent me a few dozen megabytes worth of fish pix last year for the [...]

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 Driftless Brookie & X-Caddis. This is the fourth in a series of four fish and flies in the same style (and may end up on a set of greeting cards). Next week, I’ll be moving on to another approach to drawing/painting. The brookie that I used here is from Canada’s Sutton [...]

Apologies for the lateness. More later, but for now this is the third in a series of four fish and flies in the same style. Got “peeling paint” this time, as well as eroded plaster (frustratingly, the third rinse I did to get that peeled paint cost me too much time elsewhere). May not look [...]

When stating the Kapaa Redside piece seen in the previous post, I had a certain color palette and background approach in mind. After I got a little ways into the painting, I realized it wasn’t really what I wanted to express, so I used the first Kapaa set-up as an experimental piece, trying a few [...]

Here are a couple of quick looks at a recent watercolor I did for a client who lives in Kapaa, Hawaii (thus the title of the post and the piece). It’s a more detailed version of a quicker Deschutes River redside study I did a few months back. I like some of the things that [...]

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 brown trout & stonefly nymph (two-tone, rubber legs). Like last week’s two-for-one, a brown-and-stonefly combo is a classic one in fishing (at least to me—and to Jeff, since this was his pick). The first truly big brown I ever caught, I did *not* catch on a stonefly nymph, but black [...]

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 rainbow trout & Royal Wulff. It’s late…more later. For now, think tattoos and corroded plaster. Hardly the stuff of trout streams, but this is DF& 52 and anything goes! Well, now it’s early, but I’m up, so I might as well flesh this out. The ‘bow and RW combo is a [...]

Whether abbreviated as “DF&F 52″ or just “DFF 52,” the 2012 art project that I’ll be working on with Jeff Kennedy will encompass the subject of our two previous years. Yes, 2012 is the year of Drawing Fish & Flies 52. In other words, we’ll be doing both fish and flies this year, alternating between [...]

Drawing Fish 52 silver trout (extinct). Wanted to end the year with a fish that exists now only in literature and in the eye of angling artists. I went with a fish that has some of the shape and color that I might imagine in a fine specimen, but also went with enough additional “olde tyme” [...]

Drawing Fish 52 Aurora Trout. A very close relative of the brook trout, this little-known fish makes for some good painting opportunities. Went with a overly saturated aurora theme like week 49′s Greenland char. The colors and shapes of the fish flash and streak above a sparsely forested tundra foreground that surrounds a small lake. [...]

The delayed Friday Fish Fry from last week: “Tarpon Before the Storm.” This is a quick snap-shot of me videotaping a tarpon release in the northern Yucatan. Not long after this was taken, we realized that our 45-minute trip back to town had been bisected by the leading edge of a huge thunderstorm complex. The [...]

A well-worn Christmas greeting, but since I’m a bit laid-up at the moment I had to dig into the archives for something pre-made. And in case you are wondering, yes, the above fish-size ratio still applied in 2011 (and yes, I still hold out hope to alter it in my favor in 2012).

DF52 Payara. Wanted something that felt like a prehistoric or even alien nightmare. A fish that the fossil record might reveal, a fish that has a singular, unwavering purpose, a fish that might have been beamed in from another galaxy. The fact that you can go and catch these on flies makes the image feel [...]

DF52 Greenland char. Only a week late. No excuses, just feeling a little tired. Went for a look of night and aurora, and the shape of fins and spots. Tough piece to paint due to the charcoal drawing (charcoal is all too easily turned into “watercolor”). I like this approach, but would prefer, I think, [...]