Fantasy Fish: By Gina A. Gomes

As the child of an amazingly artistic woman, I often find myself entertaining the excitement my mother has for her many creations. Once it was jewelry making, another time photography, interior design, and now painting.

With jewelry making, my mother would frequent a small bead shop in Cambridge, MA which was very close to where she was working at that time. There she would spend hours on end buying some of the most beautiful beads I had ever seen, and then spend even more time transforming those beads into beautiful pieces.

Her second passion was photography. She did a great deal of it while traveling to a number of beautiful countries. After discovering this passion, she began taking photography courses at the Rhode Island School of Design, or RISD, which later lead to her enrollment in Interior Design Courses.  Being that my mother has been an architect for a number of years, this wasn’t very far from her career and offered her greater opportunities in her field to expand her expertise.

Her newest hobby, which is actually quite far from her line of work is the painting of her Fantasy Fish. Each of her pieces are hand painted with watercolor.It is her artistic eye, as well as her passion that convey her understanding of color, making these pieces quite unique and quite beautiful.

Since I am an employee at Reynolds DeWalt, I have become more familiar with the work that is being done. I am also in an ideal position to refer my mother to the company to have her paintings reprinted on mediums such a postcards, business cards etc.

Since the pieces are hand painted, one of the dilemmas we were faced with was copying the paintings without losing the texture and feel of the artwork. After receiving some help from the Sales Manager at Reynolds DeWalt, my mother was able to photograph the paintings using a Nikon d3000, a series of small hot lamps and a table top photo studio. The end result was phenomenal. The beauty of the pieces were not lost in the photos and she was then able to apply color effects to others.

This is were Reynolds DeWalt became very important. After doing all of this, my mothers cards were well received and I became part of my first printing project.

Contributed by:
India Russell
Community Manager
irussell@reynoldsdewalt.com