“The Knowing” “54 x “26 acrylic on canvas_2002
This is my favorite koi painting so far, I remember when I was working on it, I had one of those moments where I was thinking that this was the one I had always dreamt about painting, color, composition, mood and overall trippy effect are all right on the money. (Of course I want to do better now). It was also the hardest one to paint, working in acrylic was a real stretch, I didn’t know any better at the time. I used a lot of flat sponges I bought at Pearl Paint to get the proper ethereal effect, many layers of thin, watered down paint were used to even things out. I am going to paint another one of these, but with oil paint, which is much better for blending, takes less time too. it is the largest painting I have ever worked on and I can remember that as I was painting the fine details I had this feeling the whole time that I was actually laying on top of the water, just floating on top of the koi fish. The luminescent feel of the paintings can be attributed to the fact that I was lousy at fixing the pond filter. Nobody left me an instruction book on how to clean it, believe me it was major league gross in there, and I never could get the water looking crystal clear. The ‘earthy’ particles in the water would partially block the light reflected off the koi fish softening any hard edges and giving the images that ‘spectral’ quality, which I altered more in Adobe Photoshop. The digital photo I took for this one happened right after a thunderstorm, The sun had just come out and the light had this strange quality to it. The fish slowly came out of their hiding places and seeing that the storm had passed, eased back into their daily rituals.
June 6, 2014
BUSY BRUSH CAFE 
This is lovely, had a wonderfully dreamy feel about it.
thank you. it really was a joy to paint
This is a fabulous painting. That must have been an odd feeling to be painting, but feel like you were floating in the water.
it is awesome, especially when I started to use the sponges for all those gradations
It is amazing…it looks like a photo!
thank you. it is always great to hear that.
Reblogged this on Kristosfineart.
Really beautiful effects. Working such large areas in acrylic is hard, did you try using any extender to help keep the paint from drying too fast?
I try to paint like you say Mr Conway. This good.