1. Watercolor paper. color a big swirl on one half of paper, using one color of OIL PASTEL. other side of paper, use another color & make another swirl in OIL PASTEL. i picked orange & purple.

2. paint– with WATERCOLOR paint, the colors that are closest to the OIL PASTEL color…i painted my purple swirl with blue & purple. the orange side, i used orange & yellow…saturate the paper in color. let dry.

3. cut dry WATERCOLOR PAPER into strips, when dry. then CUT the strips in half, making waves (ha, a pun)

4. draw a fish onto MATT BOARD (found for $10 bucks at Hobby Lobby) cut the fish out. draw his eye & fins on a different part of the MATT BOARD & cut those out.

5. start at the tail of the fish, place the curved part of the watercolor paper strips, the curved part, glue with gloss MOD PODGE, carefully b/c the watercolor paint can run. add on another strip, covering the flat side of the paper with a curved part…overlap each piece. let edges hang off fish. continue to layer strips of ‘scales’ onto the fish. rinse & wipe brush after switching to a new color.

6. for the fins that have been cut out, repeat…starting from the end of the fin. let dry.

7. the fish eye…i used nail polish. a thick drop of color with a dot of black for pupil.

8. when the fish & fins are dry, turn the fish upside down so that you can see the MATT BOARD fish again & trim off the paper that hangs off the edges. repeat with fin.

9. glue the fins onto the fish, the one on the back? I used tape so it looked as though it came from behind the fish. glue on the dry nail polish eye…add a drop of white paint (i dipped the end of the brush into paint & dabbed the white onto the eye)

10. i taped ribbon onto the back of the fish, to hang in my art studio. you can glue the fish onto a canvas that you’ve painted in anyway you’d like…i recommend painting water for the background.

i made this project with two young girls, the project took two hours b/c of drying time. it may not look like much, but it was wonderful fun.