Category Archives: Marine Painting

From studio floor to canvas

Posted on by under Art, Coast, Marine Life, Marine Painting, Paintings of Fish, Preparing to Paint, sea life, Uncategorized, What artists do

sticks, paint palet with dabs of oil paint, a star fish, Asteroidea, a sea urchin shell, lying on wooden floor boards in Catherine Forshall's studio

This  detail of my studio floor caught my eye.  The sea urchin became part of one of my paintings currently on show at the Flying Colours Gallery in Chelsea, London. See if you can find it there. The show, called Coast, on until 11th December, is made up of paintings of the last two years, of all sorts of sea creatures, as well as seascapes.

COAST

Wednesday 18th November – 11th December

Monday to Friday 10.30 a.m – 5.30 p.m.

at The Flying Colours Gallery

The Courtyard, 6 Burnsall Street, London SW3 3ST

Telephone +44 (0) 207 351 5558

 

Photograph by James Forshall

 

Plaice

Posted on by under Art, Marine Painting, painting photography, sea life

His rather squashed eyes look up at me reproachfully. If he were alive they would be sticking out of the mud or sand in which he would be half buried awaiting a careless crustacean, or bivalve. Both the eyes are on the right side of his face which is flat and comes to a point. It is as if a ordinary fish had been redesigned by Picasso during his cubist period and then run through the rollers of a ringer. I bought him from the fish counter in Carrefour and now he is sitting with me under the fig tree while I paint his spots. Not the orange ones. I haven’t got to those yet. Plaice can adapt their colour somewhat to their surroundings but the orange spots don’t change.

Hand with green paint brush paiting a plaice on a yellow background on canvas from dead plaice on plate

He’s quite small. Plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), are caught younger these days, though capable of living until 40 most are caught at the age of 6: too many humans, eating too much. Hand of Catherine Forshall holding green paint brush painting plaice against dark background

Marks and Spencer are good about selling you fish in season and Sainsbury’s claim to be the largest retailer of fish certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council but when in England I always buy fish from the local fishmonger,  Gibson’s Plaice, who have generously supplied me with many of my models.

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If you would like to be kept informed of forthcoming shows email me at mailto:catherineforshallpainting@gmail.com

All photographs © James Forshall