Schools Out! Pictorial progress of the painting...

Schools Out  - the Finished Painting by Michelle Griffiths

It all started with some finger painting...

Figure 1.

I started with a white Gesso background and was too impatient to wait for it to dry - I added a splodge of Acrylic in cobalt blue on the right bottom and top left corners with Cerulean Blue in the top right. And then got busy smearing it around with my fingers gradually ending up using my whole palm. It was sooooooooo much fun!

I added more paint to a palette then dipped in my finger tips - at this point I had absolutely no idea "who" or "what" was going to appear. So I proceeded to lightly sweep my finger tips across the canvas.... and hundreds of tiny fish appeared!

Figure 2.

In Figure 1. bottom right corner you can just make out palm prints that in my minds eye formed the shape of coral so I went a head with a brush and White, 'Flesh colour', Brown and Fluorescent Pink -paints and added more detail. I reverted back to finger painting for the blue coral next door. 

Figure 3.

A few brush strokes 'skipped' across the canvas with black paint broke the canvas up into sections, with the face of a bird appearing in the centre. So I added in an eye  - it is interesting as birds are showing up a lot lately in the paintings which I have been working on. 

Figure 4.

The painting was feeling a little too literal for me - Blue water - Coral reef - Fish... BORING! So I added in some negative space and more drips, splashes of acrylic ink, spots and misting with water spray.

Figure 5.

I really wasnt feeling the corals - I liked them but they were too 'coral -ly' if you know what I mean I wanted to go in a more abstract direction. I loved the fish and how I had captured the rapid movement, flow and chaos of their path. In between while I was waiting for other areas to dry I added in fishy details, eyes and gills with flashes of white here and there. 

Figure 6.

More wiggly black lines, more negative space, more fish details.....

Figure 7.

The white of the negative space was too stark so I began to take the colour down and soften those areas. The bottom of the canvas wasnt working for me so I went a bit dramatic adding a bright sheer layer of Ultra Marine over the whole area. It started to look a bit like Abalone Shell or Paua as it is called in New Zealand. So I went with it and added in some yellow to smooth out the stark blue a bit. It was VERY blue so I went back and dripped some white paint from bottom to top and then from top to bottom. Next came more acrylic ink in magenta and violet, bubbly details in the top right hand corner more wiggly black lines that I highlighted with white and then four circular areas of white dotty shapes. 

The finishing touches to the fish - flashes of metallic silver and shadowy outlines to hint at more and more fish giving depth to the school and adding to the feeling of a tight knit boiling group of tiny crazy fish - completed the painting. All in all I was pretty happy with the finished product!  

The end product - the finished painting!

The finished painting is canvas stretched on a wooden frame and measures 65 x 75cm. 

See more of my work HERE