Go Fish

Acrylic on canvas, 18" x 24". January 2005.

This painting is by far my most labor-intensive work yet. It took over 26 hours of painting, and that doesn't include the whole planning and study phase. It's a tribute to my favorite game ("Go", not "Go Fish"). The black and white ‘chips’ are Go stones, and the fish are Betta Splendens, or Siamese Fighting Fish. The painting is meant to represent a "ko fight", which is one of the most intense situations of the game.

I spent a long time trying to figure out how to paint something involving Go without doing something incredibly dorky, cheesy, corny, nerdy, or just plain ugly. One of my earlier ideas was to draw a cartoonish scene of a cat and a fish (in a bowl) playing Go in a clearing in a forest. Upon realization that it would be hard for the fish to place pieces on the board (or even to indicate where the cat should place them for him), I decided maybe two fish could be playing eachother underwater. This idea became more metaphorical, and I thought I would draw two fighting fish and have an attractive and meaningful configuration of Go stones in the background. I tried to think up attractive ko situations, but I thought they all drew too much attention away from the fish. I decided I would just draw the fish fighting and there would not be any depiction of Go whatsoever. I considered this decision to be final, and moved forwards in doing some studies of the fish (based on pictures found on the internet) and sketching some ideas for the painting.

After arriving at the positions of the fish as you see them in the finished product, I wavered on what else would be in the scene besides just the fish. I put in some nice leafy stuff on the right, but the left side was begging for something. I tried seaweed, grass, and a hill of sand. I thought the slope of the hill was a great idea because it was a good complement to the curve of the leaves. I thought that instead of sand I could use gravel... and then realized that I could use Go stones and I would be able to get some Go equipment into the painting without making it distract from the fish! In fact I made this decision so late, I had already pencilled the fish, sand, and leaves into the canvas by the time I realized I could replace the sand with Go stones. Another late decision was what to do to make the otherwise empty background a bit more interesting. I was originally thinking just to make the focus area lighter than the surrounding area, but I ended up putting some light and dark dots in the background which could be interpreted as more Go stones if you want (that wasn't the intent).

I took pictures at many points during the painting progress to document the experience. These photos were taken at all different kinds of light conditions and angles, so please excuse the inconsistent appearance. None of them enlarge except the last one, which you should click on to see the full painting!

(Click to enlarge)