School of Fish in Watercolor

This week we created a school of brightly colored fish with a technique called watercolor batik -- using w/c masking fluid.

This lesson was a fun way to learn about repetition and pattern, as well as different types of focal points and how to use them in a work of art. 

To do this, we created a school of fish with an outsider in the crowd!

We used fish templates: one for our outsider or "oddball", which was drawn first, and another to trace several times for our school of fish - because, of course, they should all look alike. Some artists chose to draw their own outsider, such as the sea turtle above.

It was important to use overlapping when drawing the fish so that some of them appeared in front of or behind other fish. We drew lightly because the pencil lines would need to be erased later on. 

We also added a few details to the fish, remembering that if you add a detail to one fish, you need to add the same detail to all of the other fish in the school!

The next step was to paint over all of the pencil lines with masking fluid. We used old brushes for this task because masking fluid often ruins your brushes, even if you wash them out right away. 

The masking fluid acts like masking tape - it keeps the watercolor off of the paper, even when you paint right over it. It keeps the colors separated, and it can be used to paint bubbles in the background, which stay white! 

The masking fluid is ready to paint over almost immediately - it dries fast. So the next step was to paint the fish. We found that a great way to do this is to paint one fish first, then copy it when doing all of the other fish in the fish school. 

The outsider is painted in different colors or even complementary colors to act as a focal point. So, it could be a different shape, size, or color, and/or it could be swimming in a different direction. 

Finally, the watery background was painted in, and after all the paint was dry, the masking fluid was removed. This is done by simply rubbing it off with your finger and tossing the residue into the trash. It took a while to do, but even the youngest artists got the hang of it. Then we used a big soft white eraser to remove any remaining pencil marks. It pays to draw lightly!

The last step was to add a few details with a Sharpie. All of the artists added detail to the eyes, and a few more added additional outlining and other details as well. 

To see an earlier post about this beautiful painting project click here. We have also created watercolor batik fish using white oil pastel instead of masking fluid. Find out how we did it here.