Seahorses are incredibly difficult for a diver to see, and are often only seen by the slightly psychopathic breed of divers that dive specifically to find micro-fauna wearing the diving equivalent of cargo trousers and cameras worth more than most houses. I, as of yet, cannot count myself among that august company and so, I have never seen a seahorse in the wild.

Sea dragons are a bit bigger than the average seahorse, being about half way between a seahorse and a pipefish, and I was lucky enough to see both weedy and leafy sea dragons on a dive outside Adelaide, at Finder’s Pier where they regularly mate. It’s the kind of progect that intrests me as, when you see a sea dragon in a picture you wouldn’t think they were well camouflaged, but when you see them in the wild, surrounded by drifting seaweed and algae, then they appear almost invisible. It’s that kind of camouflage that excites me in a painting.

I cannot free-hand paint - it takes me study after study to get a painting right, so I started with a sketch of newsprint, then on watercolour paper, then used some cut-up plastic packaging (I’m travelling and don’t have clingfilm to try and create a sense of direction in the background paitning.
I built up a layer of yellows, reds, browns and greens along the body of the sea dragon (the white contours were achieved with masking fluid) and built on it with richer highlights. The fronds were pulled out of the body and achieved with an overloaded bruh and water splatters to blend them into the background. Finally, I filled in the eye with only a layer of yellow and red edging, then a brown pupil, with a tiney white catch light. 

Overall its quite a loose, slightly blotchy painting, but it brings across the blend between background and subject. But I am still struggling to get the balance right between refinement and looseness.