Salmon Flies With Artwork

[Fishidiot]

Awhile back I displayed some flies with artwork - literally paintings - integrated into them, on this forum. Responses were enthusiastic, so I decided to try and improve on this concept and see where I could go with it. I've never really cared much for painting in extreme miniature (this is a unique endeavor just by itself) and painting on feathers - although some other artists are doing this in larger sizes.....made for further challenge.
Anyway, the fly below utilizes a feather wing and on the wing is an original acrylic painting of a brook trout. The painting was done directly on the feather. I think it's a noticeable improvement over my earlier efforts several months ago.

 

[BrookieChaser]

Nice work!

The colors in the fly compliment the brook trout colors nicely. Also I like the golden pheasant as that's a key ingredient for a Coachmen.

 

[sandfly]

really looks good, good colors on the fly and painting.

 

[lv2nymph]

Oh wow. That's incredible. Very, very well done.

 

[SBecker]

The painting and fly are incredible. Nice work.

 

[FrequentTyer]

That is beautiful work! In addition to being talented you must be remarkably patient.

 

[McSneek]

Beautiful. Would love to know more about the process of painting on a feather. How long did it take you to do it? Is the feather treated with anything prior to painting to stiffen it?

 

[Stenonema]

I think you may be on to something.

 

[Fishidiot]

McSneek wrote:
Would love to know more about the process of painting on a feather. How long did it take you to do it? Is the feather treated with anything prior to painting to stiffen it?

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

The process of painting on the feather was difficult. This is a simple duck or goose feather I think. I pressed it under a stack of books to flatten it and gave the reverse side a light spray coat of workable fixative. The painted side is untreated. Keeping the feather immoveable during the painting process is something I need to improve upon. Also, because I chose a stiff feather to begin with, the spine is large and prominent and I tried to place the trout so as to create the illusion that the spine was the fish's lateral line but this made for difficulty painting as the spine is so high. I still need to take a look at some other feathers to use that have spines that are less prominent. The fish painting is less than one and a half inches so the difficulty (for me at least) was working so small. I'd say painting the fish probably took about two hours stretched out over a period of several days. Tying the fly itself added perhaps another hour(?) - hard to say as this project was drawn out over a long period. I have some other ones in various stages of completion.

 

[whheff]

That is beautiful. A truly one of a kind piece of art.

 

[djs12354]

Wow....Just ......Wow

 

[dc410]

What an absolutely beautiful piece of artwork! Very nice work, Dave.

 

[DaveS]

I think I just figured out what I'm asking for, for Christmas!

 

[RCFetter]

It looks great. I have a small display of salmon flies in my office and I'm amazed at the attention it gets from people unfamilar with fly fishing.

 

[Maurice]

djs12354 wrote:
Wow....Just ......Wow

+1

 

[GenCon]

Beautiful fly, painting is unreal. Nice work.


GencCon

 

[lv2nymph]

Ya know I've been giving this a lot of thought and something like that would look fantastic on the wall in the tying room. Honestly, it would look good anywhere.