Fish, on a plate

11 thoughts on “Fish, on a plate”

• Does the fish have to painted from above when other angles are available? Does the plate need to be decorative when a plain background tends to help in bringing out a subject? Thanks for sharing ….

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• Thanks for posting Gareth.
  To give a little background I did this at the time when the old website was in use and many students were posting their work. I was coming to do the exercise and became interested in the similarities and differences between different students’ approach to the work. I was also interested more generally in the concepts of ownership, originality and using appropriated sources in work. I was interested in thinking about how you would visually explore the similarities and difference in work having a common starting point. And then consideration of how far you have to move from that common starting point for the work to be owned by you and be classed as original. I was looking for a way to express some of these ideas. Initially I worked with superposition and merging of different images. This got me into trouble as initially I didn’t seek permission. In this case I admit I got it wrong and let the excitement with the concept get the better of me (I have deleted this work and apologised). Anyway I then worked with the permission of a group of student to produce this and related works. On one level it is intended to be lighthearted and humorous, but hopefully it is also thought provoking.

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• Jim – it is fun, thanks for sharing it.
  When you’re drawing a fish on a plate its hard to imagine there are so many possible outcomes. I remember mine (feels like a hundred years ago) – and the thing that I remember most is the smell, because I was very slow at drawing it! Shame you can’t add smell to your video (not)
  I’m looking forward to seeing the version from Mark and Leanne to…this has whetted my appetite for an even greater variety of fishes on dishes.
  What other projects could OCA make a compilation of ?…really inspiring to see how one simple project leads to a hundred creative outcomes.
  Carol

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• I think this is great. It’s a wonderfully collaborative piece and IS thought provoking. There are so many ways to draw a fish on a plate, and though the words suggest a high viewpoint, the examples demonstrates how very varied solutions to the task can be. Well done Jim.

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• Carol – Your idea of other projects being made into a compilation is definitely food for thought. Thank you.

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• Thanks Carol and Jane
  See more here http://jimsocadrawing.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/fish-project/

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• I saw this a while ago and loved its humour and pace. As a tutor, I have seen many drawings of fishes on plates, some very good. However, so far everyone has rendered whole fish that, despite the addition of lemon and parsley, look definitely alive. No one has ever drawn a half eaten fish with its bones poking out or a fish in batter, lying perhaps on newspaper. That would be bending the brief, but why not?

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• It’s brilliant and it makes me feel proud to see my drawing immortalised on film, thanks Jim, regards, Anita

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• It is a fun piece Jim and did also cause me to think a bit. What intrigues me is how prescriptive the exercise is, and why that should be. It also makes me ponder on what is understood to be acceptable or standard subject-matter for painting or drawing, and how or why it has become so.
  Fish are of course full of texture and have interesting shapes and weighted with symbolism in art, myth and religion so I can see how they have become so common we don’t even question them in an exercise. I possibly wouldn’t have done so either with different subject-matter but couldn’t help wondering what I’d do if I was on the course (I prefer my fish alive and swimming in their natural habitats). I decided a photo-realistic drawing of paper fish on a paper plate might be an interesting approach, if one could pull it off.

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• It doesn’t upload for me, either on Safari or Google Mail. Would love to see it

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  • Do you mean the video will not play for you Jane? In which case try watching Jim’s video on Vimeo here

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