It’s easy to ask, why do you keep painting something you are so bad at? I don’t know. Curiosity? The challenge? The urge to learn?

I think the truth is… cussedness. Being ornery. And pride. I have to admit pride.

Since I set myself to teach myself watercolor, I have turned out some really good work. Yes, I can see how far I have come and how much I have learned but in any art form, I am used to being if not the best in the class, so to speak, but amongst the best. Pride. Not always a good thing. Used to be considered a deadly sin. Maybe I will admit to a touch of arrogance. Gulp!

I hate to fail.

So I have kept on painting koi pond after koi pond. Some were truly pitiful. With one, I had the idea of painting several koi then washing blues and greens over one of them to make it look like it was deep underwater.

That was horrible and will never been seen by anyone. Others almost worked. I don’t want to detail the steps of each.

With this first one, I was looking at all the reference photos I had, including the ones I had taken and most had the water being dark or almost black. Truth is, I was scared to try that dark water. So I got out my Daniel Smith Dot card and planned out how I could go…DARK.

I masked out a pair of koi then went in with Mayan Blue Dark, Cascade Green and one of my favorites, Sodalite. I threw some salt on it and waited for it to dry.

Yes, I have a lot of Daniel Smith paints but it is a collection purchased little by little over about 10 years. I have only had one tube dry out in that time and only had to repurchase my 2 or 3 favorite pigments. And yes, the dot cards have saved me a fortune as I get to test each paint before I buy it so I think I have only purchased two that I regretted – Lapis Lazuli – which is like painting with Play-doh and Cobalt Green Pale – an utterly gorgeous color but it won’t mix and has the consistency of like toothpaste.

But back to the painting. I did the fish and leaves and… well… I like the background but that’s about it. I guess it is progress.

I don’t really remember the order to did these in, but I think this was next. Again, I like the background – I added Undersea Green

this time. It is a really ugly color which is a blend of Quinacridone Gold and Prussian Blue. It is gorgeous mixed with Cerulean but when you throw salt on it, it separates out and I like the effect. The gold koi on the bottom is pretty good. The orange, less so.

Better but still, not sure I would hang it on my wall.

OK, so these two show I am getting better at backgrounds and at least one koi is good but the leaves leave a lot to be desired…I found some more reference photos and surprisingly, my favorite was one I took.

So another whack at this, we shall have, shall we?

Again, Undersea Green this time with Cerulean to make the liquid background. These leaves have pointy edges and I loved taking a damp brush and lifting the greed edges to add Hansa Yellow Light. Again, I think I succeeded on the bottom fish but not the orange one.

I am loving how I have learned to lift color and almost sculpt by removing a layer of color. This is a tool once learned will always be in available. The orange koi was painted almost entirely by this lifting and “sculpting”, removing bits of color at a time – no white paint!

But still, while I like part of each of these and I see progress, I am not calling success. Yet.