Silver of the sea

4 Jul 2020 | Works

Don't try to eat it, though

When you look at my paintings, you haven't seen fish in a long time, it's something that I've been wanting to paint. Right now, June/July is the season for fresh herring in the Netherlands, and eating it raw is a very Dutch thing to do. So I thought maybe I could get some inspiration of that.

First I figured I had to taste it, because even though I have lived in the Netherlands for years, I never tried it. So I went to the supermarket and bought some.

OMG it's disgusting! I only had one bite, and I was ready to give up on the whole painting.

But then I did some more research, and I got inspired by the phrase that herring is the "silver of the sea", because of the colour of its belly. Like the silver glint on the water in the middle of the night.

So I painted the herring like its body is the sea at night, with a moon rising over the water.

I think it turned out well! And I used silver colour for the first time :-)