For this project I chose a collection of watercolors created by artist Jacques Burkhardt depicting freshwater fish. The illustrations were created in 1865 during an expedition to Brazil led by renowned naturalist Louis Agassiz, and are remarkable in their clarity, detail and vivid hues.
I began by considering the colors and shapes unique to each fish and creating a color palette and outline for various species.
From there I created abstractions of a couple of the illustrations and played around with the shapes and colors to create kaleidoscopic patterns, reminiscent of the way in which fish are perceived when underwater.
As I experimented with colors and patterns, I turned to color theory as a source of inspiration to understand how I could work with color in a more interesting and engaging way.
I came across the book Color Problems by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and was immediately drawn to the simplicity and beauty of her color grids, which reflected her interpretation of the color components of different objects in her personal collection of antiques.
I thought this system could be a good starting point to create my own catalogue of the colors present in each species of fish illustrated by Burkhardt.
In the spirit of Noyes Vanderpoel’s grids, I began to create my own, using a five color palette to fill in each 10 x 10 grid.
The goal will be to break down the colors in each species of fish into a grid and then collate those colors and their frequency, in order to understand whether there exist any patterns in the color schemes presented.