"Winter Flounder" aka "Flounda"

"Winter Flounder" was created in 1995 for The Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester. The painting is reverse glass with oil and metal foil (aka verre eglomise) with a mixed media canvas support. It is one of 7 paintings on permant exhibition at the entrance to the museum's "Maritime Collection". size 24x36" copyright debbie clarke, magnolia ma 1995.

Gloucester photographer Mike Lafferty took some great pics for the museum and provided me with images. The zoom level really shows off the brush strokes and leaf poking through the layers.

The reference to "Flounda" is to my friend of blessed memory Anthony Orlando. He was an aspiring/very talented cartoonist and artist. The last time I saw him he was 20 years old and battling leukemia. May he rest in peace. most of my work has underlying stories to people, events and seasons of my life. this is just one.

St Anthony preached and the fish danced

panel 5 (salmon) is on the work table. that's silver leaf, aluminum leaf in the orange 'books' and the gelatin slurry (used to attach the leaf to the glass) in the aluminum pot. this panel is 'this far' (about a scooch) from finish.

i lift the glass, place the gild, look at the work, refine the leaf. this part of the work goes slowly. the fun part is coming up with the design. this takes a few days to do. then the tedious work of gilding, sanding, scraping, re-drawing, re-painting brings the work to conclusion. this part can take weeks, sometimes months to do.

the salmon was started a few months ago.

wip (work in progress): oncorhynchus nerka

that's my kitchen workspace above. below is the sockeye. aluminum and combination leaf on panel with oil and wax on reverse glass. detail below: