Great Colored Shark

Here is another project that came out of my Random Acts of Kindness / Mindfulness mindset.


At it’s heart it is a white porcelain shark I saw in a home decoration store. Too many times I see things that I tell myself “this would be the perfect gift for <insert name here>”. That also leads to numerous mild to wild arguments with my wife, since she thinks I’m just getting stuff and not gonna do anything with it. Ok, she’s right many times, but this time she wasn’t.

A great white


When I saw that shark, two things popped up in my mind.
Number one: I know a guy who is the impersonation of kindness, who loves (loved) big wave surfing, has a heart of gold and always wants the world around him to be the perfect rhythm like the soft swings of his long board rides. The perfect guy to help the world becoming a better place.
Number two: As destiny has it, he was promoted to a position where niceness and soft skills are valued far less than “real” business skills.
In other words he’s gotta swim in the tank with the other sharks to a certain extent.

So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

Cindy Lauper


So for him to never forget his true colors, I decided to paint him that shark as a reminder.
I only found out after doing this that there are better ways to pinstripe, i.e. appropriate sword and scroller brushes, One-Shot enamels etc. More on that in some later posts.

So at first I sketched out the rough patterns, on my ipad over some crudely stitched together photos…

then transferred them with a yellow pencil on to the shark…

…and painted the painted the rest on with acrylics and watercolors.

Using some cut-to-shape watercolor brushes I then put on the pinstripe-like design.

Finally the shark was spray-varnished with glossy clear acrylic.

Below is a short video of the final thing

Nothing wrong with sharks, btw, I really think they’re really fascinating creatures.

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