I was lucky to happen across iridescent watercolors. I started to think about painting things that had a natural iridescence. I made a couple confusing landscapes with the iridescents. It didn’t work out because the type of landscape I was painting wasn’t iridescent. (I think snow and auroras would look cool with iridescents, though!)

Finally I realized that some animals were iridescent - hummingbirds, and also, fish and reptiles and beetles could be iridescent.

Not knowing a ton of beetle enthusiasts personally, I figured hummingbirds and fish would be a good place to start with painting iridescent animals.

I’ve painted the following rainbow trout and have had so much fun doing it! I will be moving on to a new type of fish soon.