Final Koi Painting

This is the finished painting. All I did at this level was to blend the dark area on the bottom left a little more to my liking. You just have to know when to quit. Sometimes, I purposely put a painting away for a month or two and bring it out to look at it with fresh eyes. So now my blog followers can see how it was done step-by-step.

Stage 5 Koi Painting

Now you can see, I have developed the reflections in the foreground and put in a darker shadow.

At this stage, it is 99% complete. I still need to look on it for awhile and see what bothers me and to look at it with a critical eye.

Stage 4 Koi Painting

Now you can see how it is developing. I have laid in the dark areas of the pond and removed the masking. The reflections in the pool in the background are worked out and now I will be putting my attention on the reflections in the foreground.

Koi Painting Stage 3

Here we are at stage 3. I have rendered more of the Koi and I have put in darker washes in the upper right corner. I did this to establish how dark I wanted it to go and adjusted the other greenish blueish color in the water in the upper part of the painting. That area is still masked off while I apply the washes.

Koi Painting Stage 2

This is stage two in the development of my painting of Koi. As you can see, I put in more washes of the water and developed the color of the central koi in the painting.

Koi Painting

I started this painting of Koi fish in a pond and decided to document the progression of how I developed the painting. This is stage 1. I put in basic washes and applied masking to areas that I want to keep white.