It’s been a while since I started on this fish, namely after the painters’ group meeting on 28 January 2026. The version on paper (see the last photo) wasn’t a success, so I decided to start again. To be honest, I wasn’t really in the mood to finish painting this fish; it just wasn’t turning out the way I’d imagined.

The first step was to paint the canvas black, and then I drew the fish on it with white chalk. Apparently, blackboard chalk is supposed to be easy to wipe off, but that wasn’t the case for me. It left ugly white smudges and I had great difficulty painting over them.

Initially, I wanted to paint the fish in shades of red, but later on I switched to purple, violet and lilac. Personally, I thought these colours looked much nicer for a Betta fish. I’m not too keen on the body, but I’ll leave it as it is.

The intention was to paint the blue of the water over the black as well; I did this several times, but it doesn’t really stand out once the paint dries.
I hadn’t actually planned to finish this with a varnish, but I’m going to do so now anyway. Not only because the final result turned out better than expected, but also because I don’t think I’ll be able to use this canvas again—which I got for free from 4Noppes, the giveaway shop.

Once again, I’ve worked with a cheap type of paint, although I must say that a few colours did have more pigment than the paint from Action. These include the 75-millilitre tubes from AliExpress and one or two colours I was given. You therefore need less of this, and you can also work with a slightly wetter brush, so thinning the paint a little.

Whilst painting with acrylics, I did miss the Rembrandt soft pastels I’d used to create fish before. I think it’s time to start using them again.

Tomorrow I’ll think about what new project I’m going to tackle.

_{10-4-2026
Materials: canvas (used), Acrylic paint: black, blue, red, titanium white - Action and purple, violet - Aliexpress.
Brushes: flat #18, round #2}