Sunday, February 14, 2016

Lots of good fish, good fish in the sea

Anyone who is really familiar with The Mikado know that those title words are used repeatedly in the finale of act 1 of that G & S musical. I think of it every time I compose a new fish. Here is the one that I worked on recently:
 
The hanging is quite lengthy and of course, being a Pisces it has difficulty in making up its mind, so just for fun, here is the other side.  
I tried to keep the cane work to a minimum, and besides the eyes and the lip canes,  I basically only made three different canes.  But by combining them, stretching them and giving them slight twists here and there, I had enough variety to hopefully keep the decorative elements from being boring. 

The fish is about 9 inches by 5 inches and is totally polymer, with some copper wire used as fin support structures.  The wire also goes into the inner viscera of the fish to form a sort of armature. 

From a structural point, the one issue that constantly presents potential problems is knowing where to position the fins so that the final sculpture hangs relatively level. The balance in this one is a little "off" but I am not about to go and purchase a Level.   I just keep my fingers crossed that if the fish has to swim a little upstream, at least it's heading in the right direction. 



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