Goldfish in imaginary color

My 75 days of Ink only is still proving to be fun and even more educational than I realized. I am using all kinds of different references–my own photos, life drawing, magazines and books. I don’t normally use resources that aren’t my own, but I am just learning after all. I am trying not to take each sketch so seriously.

The fish resource is from a book I found in my studio, I forgot I had it. It’s called Animals 1419 Copyright-Free Illustrations of Mammals, Birds, Fish, Insects, etc. Selected by Jim Harter. It’s AWESOME! That is where the fish came from. They are all black and white. I did a quick sketch of this great fish–the book says its a type of gold fish. Then I thought–this might be fun with some imaginary color. A lot of fun!

I think that the first black and white only sketch is actually nicer, but I felt like adding the color from my imagination was a good experiment, one I will work on improving. I used a water soluble disposable fountain pen and inktense pencils.  The water soluble pen offered up some nice surprises.

Goldfish black ink only. Quick sketch.