Original artwork description:

I was standing at the back of the boat haplessly sprinkling crumbs on the water. You could see the bottom in places, and then the small fish gathering in the sunlit shallows. The ripples on the surface cast strange striped shadows on the fish, that were in fact quite plainly coloured. Did the refracted light add to their camouflage or not? I made a simple sketch and returned to the studio to work up something appropriate. I’ve included a scanned image of the field sketch in aquarelle and china ink for your interest. The main difference in the oil painting is that I have painted in glazed layers to add to the sense of depth, and included some surface foam as a visual datum. [421]

Materials used:

oil paint

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