New Addition to Goldfish Series

Continuing my series of goldfish paintings in colored pencil, here is a veil tail goldfish on black card stock. My objective in this painting was to use the black background to emphasize the shape of the fish and make the highlights stand out. Whenever I paint living things (animals, fish, birds, people) I always start with the eyes. The eyes give you piece the spark of life and help to establish character from the first stroke of color. Once the eyes are painted, the first step in painting this piece was to base all of the lightest areas with a light wash of White. The darkest areas were first washed with Black Grape, the compliment of Orange. After the initial washes, the color was built up in layers with the lightest, brightest oranges layered in last.