Art of an animal that isn't a bird

This past weekend Sky Nursery hosted an exhibition and judging competition for a regional koi fancier society, and Tina and I went to check it out.  There were about a dozen pools filled with stunning fish.

We brought sketch books, but I quickly realized the fish were moving around too much to do anything other than rapid gesture drawings, so I opted for photos instead.

I did want to try painting from a photo later at home, and was taken by the classic orange and white koi as a good subject.

Though this golden koi also caught my eye -- incredibly beautiful.

I stuck with "classic" koi, as it had more color variety to work with.  I decided to try doing it in pastels -- I bought some months ago as part of my "year of art", to explore new media.  After doodling with them for a bit and getting frustrated by the fact I had no idea how to handle them, I put them away.

I dug them out again, and found a sheet of blue pastel paper lying around, and tackled the koi with a mix of soft pastel (the oranges, yellow, and white) and hard pastel pencils (darker spots and lines).  I tried a few different ways of blending, and had to go over the main body a couple of times.  Overall, it turned out pretty well -- but I'm not sure pastel is something I'd use a lot.

One thing I learned (a little too late):  wear old clothes.  There is now orange chalk dust all over a nice blue shirt I bought two weeks ago, which is not quite so nice now!