Gone Fishing

 Long ago at our old house we installed a water feature, a small hand dug 3 ft. deep pond that brought so much pleasure. We stocked it with half a dozen feeder gold fish that came from the pet store. My young neighbor had grown tired of his 3 fantail gold fish, so he brought them to live with us. Those nine fish became the foundation for our fish colony. We still enjoy watching the offspring those original fish.When we moved here, I insisted on a new water feature. The Head Gardener rented a machine to dig the hole, which ended up being much larger than I had planned. Beware the man with a digging machine. Our gold fish and water lilies lived for a long time in a horse tank. In the winter we moved the fish into the garage. Neighbors moved and gave us their 3 koi. We lost one the first winter, but the other two thrived and grew from a few inches in size to more than a foot. They were both white and mixed with the the gold fish, so we now have a variety of gold fish and gold fish crossed with koi. Two years ago a blue heron killed the smaller one and last winter we lost our Big Boy. We replaced them with 3 small koi late last summer so we will see how or if they survived this winter. 

The dollhouse project then needs a koi pond. I have made some flowers for the Bellingham Farmhouse garden, the hen house is complete; now I will begin making the water feature. This week I  practiced making water lilies and koi. Here are my results.

I began the water lily by looking at my photos last summer's water flowers. I have several water lilies and a lotus We finally realized that the big clump of plant in the middle of the pond was a lotus. Four or five years ago I purchased a lotus tuber at the Denver Botanical Gardens plant sale. We potted it and put in the bottom of the pond.  I never could figure out if it actually grew, but this summer I realized that there was something different about one lily. It stood taller, had greener, bigger leaves leaves, and giant blossoms. My horticulturalist daughter said that it was a lotus. As I look back at photos of past summers, in 2019 the lotus had bloomed, taking over the center of the pond and last summer it had doubled in size. 

I have regular water lilies, too: white, pink, and yellow

The photo show distinct differences between the two flowers. The yellow one in the front sits above the water on longer stem and is larger. The back flower, the lily, originally came from Texas where my father collected it, and I brought tubers from his pond. It thrives in our small environment. I also have a pink lily and yellow lily. 

I began by punching out the pieces, using the geranium leaf punch for the leaves, the bellflower punch for the leaves, the snowflake sort of punch for the stamen, and paper covered floral wire.

The project requires simple tools that you already have in your tool box:

Using a ball stylus, I shaped the pieces to cup the blossoms and to give the leaves dimension. The clamp tweezers certainly help to help to to hold stem in place as you glue the layers in place. The pliers are jewelry pliers, and the ball stylus tools are found the quilling section at the craft store or the with the clays. It's nice to have different sizes for different shapes. Use tacky glue to adhere the pieces. I used computer paper for the petal and card stock for the stamen and leaves.

 

With the pieces shaped, I stacked them: 4 white petals, off setting and staggering the petals, using a dab of tacky glue between each layer.

Using the pliers I bent a circle at the end of the wire to form a platform for the blossom then about an inch below bent the wire in an L shape. The lotus blossom stands several inches above the surface of the water while the water lily sit on the water surface. Mine intermingle and that  is the best way to tell the difference between the two.

And there you have it, a simple water lotus and water lily. While not botanically accurate they are a decent facsimile of the the real thing. I've ordered a kit from Miniature Garden in Etsy, and we'll see how close I came to to creating believable water flowers

With the water flowers figured out, I decided to try my hand at creating koi.

While there are several Youtube tutorials on making koi, I followed Sugar Charm Shop because she creates the entire pond.

To begin, it is a good idea to search for images on the Web to see how a koi actually looks and then begin.

• Tools: sharp edge blade, tiny ball stylus, a sharp point stylus, or may just a toothpick if you don't have these job specific clay tools to do the sculpturing.
• Supplies: The tutorial mixes white soft Fimo with white translucent Fimo, but I used just the translucent for the first fish. You can see the difference of the two clays after baking. Before baking, the white clay and the translucent look the same. For the other two fish I used Special Effect Fimo, white clay with glitter. I accidentally bought that pack, so why not use it to give the fish that fishy glimmer t? Actually mixing it with the translucent will give a very nice effect, I think.

Before  baking the fish: 

After baking

You can barely see the glitter in the front fish.

Shaping fish is pretty simple: begin with a fat rope of clay then work it into the shape by pinching one end to make the head and elongating the other end to form the tail. You can see the differences in the faces and heads. With practice, I hope to get more consistent. Use the tools or the toothpick to sculpt the facial features.

To create the fins and tails, use the translucent clay to give that transparent look of those parts. Pat out a small circle of clay until it is very thin and cut the the fins and tails, using the pointed stylus to draw the veins in the tail and fins. I used the fine point stylus to sculpt and then to lift the pieces off the tile and place them on the body. Again, look a pictures to see where the fins go and how the they are shaped.

I used my craft acrylic paint to color the fish, mixing red and yellow to get orange. I certainly need to work on my painting technique some more.

After the paint dried, I baked my fish at 275 in the oven in 20 minutes. They are about an inch long, which represents a 12 inch fish. That's huge koi, but then koi to get big and mine were at least a foot in length. Gold fish won't get the large, so I'll have to practice making smaller fish. The gold fish are 6 inches at best, some with lovely flowing fan tails that I'll try to make for my mini pond.

What fun and easy project these were. I'll make a few more flowers when the kit arrives and I want cat tails. I may have to purchase a kit for them. Sugar Charm Shop shows how to fashion the pond using resin, which I have never worked with, so that will be an adventure.

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Have a great week.