For tis piece I tried to mix water colors and colored pencils together, giving the whole mixed media thing a try. When doing this I had an issue with layering my pencils too early. What I learned from this piece is that if I want to create more depth I should layer my water colors slowly from light to dark then sharpen it with colored pencils. Not lightly color in the subject with a base color then darken and sharpen. This lack of transitioning really made this piece took weird and I eventually gave up on it. If I had to pick my favorite party it would be the eye, I feel like it looks really nice; however like the rest of the piece it is mostly colored pencil and hardly any watercolors. I felt like I tried adding polish too early, and next time I will try to be patient and spend more time with the piece, patience and waiting is essential and with watercolors and with this piece I went too crazy too early. Polish is my favorite part though, which is why I went so crazy so early.

I really like the composition for this piece, I used the works of the master artist Winslow Homer. I really liked the chilled look in his pieces and and wanted to capture it with my own piece. Having the fish being a source of warmth and light inside the chilled darkness around it. Another main focus of mine was composition, to look at some interesting composition for animals I referenced the animal pieces of Terry Miller. I really liked the side profiles of the fish; however I ended up should with a more curved figure so your eyes follow him from the top to the bottom. I felt that if I got too close and detailed I would make it look worse because of how whenever I use water colors I happen to always miss the line art and go outside the lines. I did not really focus on light as much, rather making the fish look curved and round, instead it kind of looks like his skin is peeling. I tried to keep my palette on the warmer side for the fish, because it is the koi fish there is a lot more negative space then positive but I ended up making the entire fish have color because I could not contain myself and really wanted color.