Combining traditional and digital art creation methods.

Creating Mixed Media Pieces

This is an art piece that I created by combining both traditional painting methods and digital editing. I wanted to bring this painting to life and make it look as though my paintings of the fishes were swimming in actual water.

I started off by painting a koi fish using watercolour paint on mixed media paper.

After that, using Adobe photoshop, I duplicated the painting of the koi fish, and positioned the fish in a way to look like they were swimming past each other in opposite directions. I then created shadows underneath them to show depth.

To create the final piece, I overlayed an image of water over the fish, also using Adobe photoshop.

About the Art Piece

This art piece is inspired by the memories I had from back home in Malaysia, when I was a child ; when I would sit by myself at the communal fish pond in my apartment, and stare at the koi fish swimming gracefully, for hours. I would often go to sit at the fish pond after school and daydream about what life would be like if I was a fish in that pond. There is also a cultural reference in this art piece. In a lot of east and southeast Asian cultures, koi fish are a popular subject for many paintings as they represent good fortune and harmony. The style in which I painted the koi fish was inspired by traditional east and southeast asian paintings of koi fish.