Pisces Zodiac Designs

 

I'm taking some time out this summer to work on the signs of the Zodiac, a project that I started many years ago in my teens.  I started with Pisces as it's my own sign, and will work on Aquarius next.  The original is 12 inches squared and painted with watercolour, with silver pen, silk outliner pen and collaged with painted papers which I made on white tissue paper.  Here are some close-ups of the design.

The background was created with a mottled watercolour wash and sponged with white gouache.

Over the initial watercolour wash I spattered paint, gold ink, gold collage paper and silk outliner pen.

A close up of the fishes

The fish scales are  made up of layers of a painted background, painted collage paper, overlayed with gold spattering.

The tail showing the 'dots' of paint made by the silk outliner pen (normally used for silk painting)

 I paint on tissue paper with acrylic paint.  Each piece takes several layers of paint, either painted on,sponged or spattered on.  It's tricky trying to paint on the thin tissue so I keep the pieces fairly small (about A4)

Working with collage papers can involve a lot of mess so it is important to get organized.  I have boxes and boxes of little pieces of collage colours that might come in useful for a future project.  These papers are the ones I used for the Pisces design and a tarot design I am working on for The Empress, entitled "Enfoldment".