More Classic Salmon Flies (Okay, maybe this is getting ridiculous)

[Fishidiot]

There's something of a sub-genre among some wildlife artists that involves painting on non-traditional surfaces - among these are paintings on feathers. Usually this involves a turkey tail feather. Anyway, when I've looked at these, I've sometimes pondered whether one might be able to integrate a very small original painting into a salmon fly or some type of classic streamer. Recently, while tinkering at the easel with some small brushes, I decided to take another stab at this idea.
The fly below incorporates an actual painting of an Atlantic salmon on the feather wing. The fish is about an inch in length and was painted directly on to the feather. In the future, should I try another one, I can see I'll need some stiffer primary feathers as the soft hackles used in this case became distorted when the paint dried.

Well, it was fun and something different.

 

[turkey]

Now this is amazing. What a cool idea...and well executed also. Awesome Dave.

 

[jay348]

turkey wrote:
Now this is amazing. What a cool idea...and well executed also. Awesome Dave.

+1

that's awesome!

 

[SBecker]

Agree I like it. Can you make the next one a landscape scene of the Letort? Lol

 

[eunanhendron]

great idea,well executed.

 

[barrybarry]

Amazing. Thanks.

 

[lv2nymph]

You know, the longer I look at it the more it looks like the trout is actually swimming out of the fly. I really, really like the way you did that. Very nice work, you could go in a lot of directions with something like that. Jack

 

[FrequentTyer]

Wow! That is just amazing.
Mike.

 

[untamed_spirit]

Unbelievable. You are truly an artist way ahead of your time!!! I can't wait to see more of your inventions. Keep them coming, they are fantastic!!!!

 

[Maurice]

very cool David!

 

[Phish_On]

Really cool. Good job.

 

[dc410]

That's beautiful, Dave. What a gift you have. Thanks for sharing it with us. Keep it up!

 

[DaveS]

As always Dave, excellent work.

 

[NickR]

Are you inventing a new style here Dave? Very nice!

 

[Chaz]

Dave, can you now do a similar pattern for brookies?

 

[Fishidiot]

Thanks for the kind words folks...you're an encouraging bunch. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to make of this as a concept and wondered if folks wouldn't think this was just silly or over the top.

Think I'll pursue this concept a bit further and see where it goes.

Chaz,
I love painting brookies and will probably do something like that. In this case, I figured - since it was a salmon fly - that a salmon might seen the obvious topic. Perhaps a brookie might be a better fit with a more conventional streamer fly, maybe on a long feather wing tandem streamer of the type popular in New England a century ago(?). At this point, I need to experiment more with "harder" feathers and find suitable ones, otherwise I can't get the detail and make the paint work. May need to use some fixative craft spray to get a hard enough support surface. We'll see.

 

[Fishidiot]

Okay - did some experimenting with feathers and paint thickness. Still have a good bit of issues to figure out, but I've decided to go forward with a series of flies incorporating fine art components.

The following fly from this week shows a brown trout on a feather wing streamer.

 

[hack]

These are amazing - Truly works of art.

You have an incredible gift. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Chaz]

I was going to say, Salmon don't have the red spots as adults. But you splained it.

 

[lv2nymph]

Really, really nice. You do fine work indeed Dave. I'd like to pre order one with a brookie on it please.