Another Watercolor Portrait

How to Draw a Fish

Start with a football shape, but don't connect the ends.

Next add the back fin to the right side of the football shape. You'll draw a sideways flat V and connect the ends with a squiggly line.

Followed by the top and bottom fins. The top fin looks like a wave and the bottom fin is a curvy cone shape.

Next add a sideways raindrop to the left side and a circle for the eye. 

Now you'll add the top lip. For the eye add a small circle towards the top and another circle "behind" that. 

Fill in the center of the eye. Make sure you leave the small circle you made white. That's going to be the light reflecting in the eye. You'll also add a horn shape to the midde of the fish. 

Add a few lines to the fins to give them texture, and draw a curved line by the face.

Now you can start on the scales. Simply add some half cirlcles by the face. 

 For the next row you'll add more half circles like this.

 Keep going! Try to make your half circles a little smaller as you move along your fish.

It's ok if they aren't perfect! Fish don't have perfect looking scales! 

Almost done! This part can take a really long time!

Draw your scales from the face all the way to the back fin. 

Now add some squiggly shapes on either side. Don't draw these lines over your fish. We want the fish to look like it's in front!

And that's it! If you don't like how your fish turned out just try again. You can also print this one out and color it!

My First Ever Watercolor Portrait!

Current Project

Since the girls are in school this week I've had a little bit of free time. Here is a picture I've been working on the past couple of days and the process of making it.

Raising Good Employees

In the summer of 2014 my husband and I both lost our jobs within just a few weeks of each other. We very quickly stopped all our spending and used our savings on only necessary bills. We worked at jobs we didn't necessarily like that didn't pay what we were use to in order to keep some sort of income coming in.

Stories like this are all too common, but one thing you usually hear about when these things happen to families is "Our kids didn't know how little money we had. We wanted to protect them." For my husband and I my kids DID know how little money we had! We wanted to protect them!

I hear adults admit that as a child they didn't really know how poor they were, but yet still found happiness in life. When I was a child I had an idea of how poor our family was, but yet still found happiness in life... and a much greater appreciation for everything I had/have.

When I worked as a manager I watched a new generation of employees step into the working class with a sense of entitlement. These kids wanted a pat on the back for doing a good job everytime they did a good job. My parents always taught me that you earned your paycheck by doing a good job and a pat on the back only came when you went above and beyond the job expected.

My goal is to teach my kids this same work ethic which isn't the easiest thing to do in the world we are living in right now. Sports programs give kids the same size trophy no matter how hard each of the kids played. Imagine if everyone got the same participation bonus at work even if some worked harder than others? "Good job for showing up to work today! Here is an extra $100!". Schools give kids awards for "almost" making it. Every year I watch Angel's award ceremony at school and one of the things she gets recognized for is "almost making perfect attendance". I don't hang those awards up on the fridge. (I do however frame her awards for getting As and Bs for the whole year!) How would you feel if you hired a lawyer whose office was full of plaques that said "I almost won that case!". I don't want my kids to think that "almost" is good enough or that simply showing up to something is worth the same as doing your best while you are there.

If you see us walking around the store you'll notice both my girls carrying a purse full of change. It's change that they've earned for times when I felt they went above and beyond the job expected for their age. When they spend the money in their purses they do it with pride and tend to take better care of the things they bought with the money they earned. My girls are only nine and four years old and already appreciate hard earned money. Imagine what kind of employees they will be one day.

It's not just about teaching kids to feel good about themselves, but teaching them to feel good about the things that they do.