Red & White Swimmer Fishing Lure Painting

It’s funny just how many types of fishing lures are available.  Many are straight forward, time-tested lures that come in all kinds of different colors.  And then some are outright bizarre configurations.  I guess the folklore of catching “the big one” helps feed into the crazy designs of some lures.  Everyone is hoping that the next lure will catch more and bigger fish.

While this lure isn’t the oddest design I’ve seen.  Not by a long stretch. It is pretty unique in that it is divided into two halves and seems to swivel.  I read online that it’s supposed to imitate an injured fish making this lure seem like easy prey.

Regardless of what this lure is used for I really did enjoy painting it simply for its aesthetic qualities!  The bright red top contrasting with the weathered white bottom lured me for sure.  Okay, a bad pun.

Ha Ha Ha

Joking aside this lure was business as usual.  I painted on top of a well-established drawing.  The drawing was completed first.  I next painted my underpainting using a monochromatic neutral brown.  Raw umber was my choice here. I can attest to not liking the process of painting on a bare white canvas.  I find the painting matures to a good looking state really quickly when working with colors over some kind of underpainting.  Even just working on top of a gray-toned canvas works wonders.  Working on top of white is terrible in regards to this.  You have to work way too hard to apply any dark pigments.

One this I found interesting in this painting’s composition was the slight tilt caused by one of the hooks.  The middle hook fell just right so that it nudged the bottom half of the lure over.  These are those small little compositional things that I find myself working with for a long time when I’m setting up the subject matter.  One might think: “Just hang the lure and paint it”.  Maybe but I can get awfully fussy about the composition.  I’m investing many hours painting I want to make sure that the placement of the object is just right.

Overall I really enjoyed painting this lure.  I’m happy with the finished painting too!