Little fish with plum blossom ...

... sounds like I've been busy in the kitchen, but fear not -

It was my turn to issue the challenge to the Fearless Four, and as I love poetry I provided two poems to provide inspiration.

The first is by D H Lawrence called Little Fish
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
in the sea.
Quick little splinters of life,
their little lives are fun to them
in the sea.

And the other is a Haiku by Matsuo Basho
Suddenly the sun rose,
To the scent of the plum-blossoms,
Along the mountain path.

I decided to use the first one as inspiration, and found a box canvas in my store cupboard (yes, I am trying to use up stuff before I buy more!).

I prepared the canvas before we met, to save drying time.  I used Ryn's Gingko stencil with modelling paste, and also used the paste to create some sea grass, with added tiny beads.

Several layers of paint later -

I don't have any fish stamps, so made my own with funky foam backed with pieces of acetate packaging.

You can see the stamps at the side here.

I also stamped the fish around the edge of the canvas - here is a close-up.

Next, I cut some fish from cardboard, and painted them separately.  These are very exotic fish, never seen before!







The end result ...

I'm entering this into the current Craft Stamper challenge, all about texture, but entries also have to include some stamping.  Hope my hand made stamps qualify!

The latest Paper Artsy challenge is all about stencils, so that one too!

And another entry for Ryn's monthly challenge!

Now, what did the other three get up to ...

Monica went for the Haiku about plum blossoms, and did two small canvases to be hung together -

Lin did a fishy one -

And Linda also went for fish -

A good time (and lunch!) was had by all ...