Goldfish Panels

Today we're doing a mixed media project. Now before you scroll by, there's not a lick of paint, paste, chipboard, wax, or inky spray. "Mixed media" just means a number of different colouring or art mediums used on one project, and in our case, that will be water based inks (Distress Ink cubes), alcohol markers (Copics) and coloured pencils (Prismacolor)... nothing scary at all!

I printed the goldfish panel onto blending card with light grey ink, which will give me a no-line look once I've finished the colouring. I also collected three shades of blue distress ink, which I will brush into the background, a collection of orange, yellow and red markers for my fish, and a white, grey and black pencil for added highlights and shadows.

Brush or blend the water-based ink onto your panel, directly over the fish. Spritz lightly with water and immediately place a paper towel over the top to absorb the water. This will leave tiny white dots that resemble little bubbles.

Now spritz again with water, but this time allow the card to air dry rather than using a paper towel. This will leave watery rings of colour.

Once your card is completely dry, start colouring the fish with alcohol markers. Since there are "layers" of fish, you'll want to have several different colours so that each one is discernible. I have some orange fish, some red fish and some that are yellow.

Use a black, fine point pen to add some detail to the eyes of the fish. 

Here they are all coloured.

Now use your coloured pencils to deepen shadow areas and lighten the highlights. This will help bring back some of the detail that may have been lost during the colouring process as well as give the image depth. Don't forget to add a dot of bright white to each eye to really bring them to life!

Highlights:

Shadows:

Repeat for all the fish in your project. You can even add tiny scales using the white pencil, but try to keep it to the uppermost fish to boost the illusion of depth.

Stamps: