We'll cover an array of naturalists and artists that studied marine life of all kinds, from corals, sponges, and shells to fish, crustaceans, and marine mammals.
Guillaume Rondelet, Pierre Belon, Wenceslaus Hollar, George Rumpf, Adriaen Coorte, Filippo Buonanni, Martin Lister, Louis Renard, Dezallier d’Argenville, Marcus Elieser Bloch, Captain James Cook, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Lucy Way Sistare, Phillip Henry Gosse, William Saville-Kent
Your assignment: Choose one aquatic species found in the Chesapeake Bay for your research and illustration and include the research questions found below..
Complete in colored inks and one of the following: graphite pencils, colored pencisl, watercolor pencils, or inkpens. Include colored background in your composition.
Research the following:
What is your chosen specimen's position in the food chain?
Is it farmed, wild caught, or both?
What are the pros and cons of fish farming? (Give 3 pros and 3 cons)
What is bycatch?
A useful resource (you don't have to limit yourself to this one): Chesapeake Bay Foundation
https://Cbf.org
Try to imitate the look of a hand-colored etching or lithograph. You don't have to use these examples, but you may.
Marcus Eliazer Bloch
*note the direction of the hatchmarks on these etchings. To imitate the look of a traditional etching, use micron pens and imitate the line quality and hatch marks. I find it preferable to sketch with graphite, color with ink washes, and draw with micron pens last, as they can bleed when wet.
In class:
You'll begin a quick study, 4x6, to work with acrylic inks (or the media of your choice). You'll compose an underwater scene with a fish, either real or imaginary. Fill the composition with your background color before completing your fish. Determine the position of the light so that you know how to add shadows. Below is a rough sketch demonstrating acrylic ink washes and colored pencils (both water-soluble pencils and regular)
Fish are painted with washes of acrylic inks. Additional shading is done with colored pencils. Seaweed is added with watercolor pencils.
For pleasure reading on artists working to repair some of the damage done to marine life, see the following:
Artist: Jason deCaires Taylor
https://www.underwatersculpture.com/
Artist: Betty Beaumont
https://www.schuylkillcenter.org/art/?page_id=281
Artists: Helen and Newton Harrison
https://theharrisonstudio.net/the-lagoon-cycle-1974-1984-2
anemones by Philip Henry Gosse
Link to today's presentation https://youtu.be/V5qYNwkfOzo
imitation of hand-colored woodcut engraving with acrylic inks and micron pens
Demonstration on painting fish underwater with acrylic inks:
Demonstration in using colored inks to imitate etching:
anemones by Philip Henry Gosse
For pleasure viewing on the chromolithography process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J92N1W7Kb0&t=111s
Student work:
Urchin, by Angela Kramer
