A silvery-rose channel bass hangs in deep teal water, hooked and turning, the red flash of its gill the only hot color in the painting

Click the painting to stand closer, close enough to see the paper

Clear Water

Channel Bass

Medium Watercolor and graphite on wove paper
Paper 300 lb cold-press cotton
Size 11¼ × 19⅜ in
Painted 2024

Painted looking straight down into deep water. The whole sheet was flooded teal first; then the fish was lifted out of it with clean water and a rag while everything was still damp. That flash of red at the gill is the only warm note on the paper, and the entire painting exists to make it ring.

Placeholder artwork: “Channel Bass (1904)” by Winslow Homer, public domain via The Met.