Fish AB III

One of the sample activities I mentioned above was creating more spreads in the fish AB. Here's another one.

I prepared the pages for this spread by coating them with gel medium (any kind). When it was dry, I painted on a second coat of gel medium and layered on a sheet of plain white tissue that was around twice the area of the pages. I pushed and crumpled the tissue so it fit onto the page while remaining fairly flat. This gave the page texture.

The next step was to paint on layers of blues and greens and touches of coral, bright red, deep yellow, and blue. I just kept dabbing and swiping until the colors took on the kind of depth you'd expect in an underwater seaweed world.

I added images of two fish and a seashell. What is happening now is that all the fish in the book swim from left to right, so it looks a little as if the fish are on a journey through the landscapes of the book.

To finish the spread I sewed in fronds of sea-coloured yarn close to the fold.

The approaches I've used in this book are all very simple, but people who've not seen them before are impressed. My aim is to help the budding artists in the AB class gain confidence (and impress their friends) by teaching them techniques like this.