something fishy

one of my art friends is hosting an altoid tin swap. in each group, each participant asks for a specific theme for their card. one of the player's theme was fish or flamingo. there is something about fish i love. it could be that the way they swim so gracefully is meditative to me. or maybe it is their ability to breathe underwater. as a little kid i use to think i could do that when i stood under the shower!

it's been a long time since i explained how i did a piece of artwork, so since this piece is more than meets the eye i thought i'd let you know how i ended up with the finished piece.

i first used bleach on a swirl stamp and stamped it on a purple piece of cardstock. then i took a different swirl stamp and used black staz on ink to stamp on the cardstock. i put that aside to dry. i painted, stamped and did some journaling on a piece of deli paper. i cut out strips to resemble plant leaves. i found an image of a fish and cut it out. i used oil pastels to brighten the fish and then added india ink to make his face stand out. i glued the leaves and the fish to the card stock. i used a white marker to add bubbles and then when that was dry i used a white gel pen to brighten the bubbles. i used the india ink to define the leaves and the bubbles. then i used oil pastels to add areas of shadow to the leaves. i also added various colors of blue oil pastels to the purple background.