The Fish
Medium: Chalk Pastel on Paper
Date: c. 2007
A (hard) chalk pastel drawing of koi observed in an indoor conservatory pond. At its simplest, this is a study of how light catches reflection, bends, and disappears beneath dark surfaces. The image focuses on the movement of light across reflective scales contrasted with dark water, rendered on black paper to intensify visual depth.
Process Notes:
This drawing began casually. I was experimenting with chalk pastels on black paper while revisiting a photograph I had taken years earlier at a conservatory. There was no larger conceptual framework behind it, only curiosity about how the reflected light on the fish might translate into pastel, and how this image might come together working from shadows first to highlights last.
Hard pastels were used and the process was intuitive and exploratory. The image came together quickly, more as an exercise in observation and rendering than as a symbolic statement.
Later, after being framed and entered into a local exhibition, the drawing won the show and received press coverage. From that point on, it took on a different role for me personally. It became a visible marker of technical ability, unintentionally associated with my identity as an artist.
It remains in the portfolio not because it carries the depth of later work, but because it represents a foundational layer of craft, the part of me that can render what is seen with precision. I was lucky enough to be born with a pre-disposition toward technical skill and realistic rendering and have found it more rewarding to explore other aspects of the creative process. That said, this version of me is one of many that I have come to appreciate and welcome into the room. In this case, it helps that this piece is also visually coherent to my larger work and thus seems to carry some of the same spirit, even if it was captured in passing.
