Shoal illustration

This piece was a roller coaster to make, and I almost gave up on it multiple times! For context, I made this piece whilst really struggling with my art, the classic ‘boo hoo, what if I can’t make good art anymore’ frame of minds, so the urge to never make art again was strong. Very dramatic! Anyway, it started out with good intentions after finding these gems on Pinterest.

I wanted to make something which showed a cross section of the sea, with lots of movement and most importantly, a colour pallet outside of my comfort zone. After assessing my art from the past year, I noticed my colour choices were getting a bit repetitive - time for something new! I sketched out these thumbnails, minus the very small rushed one in the bottom left corner. That was drawn later after my almost ‘art meltdown’, and was the saving grace of this project.

I started by trying to paint a very blended colourful ocean, (on the left) but soon realised I hated it, so I painted over it, making lots of splatters and texture (on the right). This, I actually quite liked, which felt nice… but not for long. I had, what I now know, was a bad idea. I decided to add a big dark ugly boat to the top of the piece.

Even though I thought it looked a little odd, I was hopeful this would be a trust the process situation. I persevered and kept going for a few hours, prepping fish cut outs to paint. I guess the penny dropped when I asked Oscar, if he could tell what was happening in the piece, and he couldn’t tell that the boat was a boat. It just confirmed what I was already thinking. One very grumpy evening later, it was time to rethink.

New day new me… lets give it another go. I did one more thumbnail sketch without the boat and instantly it was a better composition. I must say my spirits were incredibly low - it’s mad how much art can effect my mood! This time I decided to spend a lot more time painting my sea and planning out where my colours would go.

It’s fair to say this attempt was going much better. Who would have thought having a plan and not rushing would make for a better outcome…

Here is the final physical art work, but I knew I could make it a lot better with just a few simple changes on photoshop. So I scanned it in and got to work.

The main change being removing the seaweed from the bottom left corner and adding in a much bigger fish to cover it up. I also added in some semi transparent seaweed behind the fish shoal on left and some lovely texture to the sky. With that this piece was complete! At the time I didn’t really know how to feel about it, as It was so different to what I had in mind. But as I look at it now, I really like it. Sometimes it takes a bit of time to really appreciate what you’ve made.