This mackerel school sculpture was a fun one to create! It was a unique challenge to make many fish in groupings look like individual fish. I achieved this by essentially drawing fish with grinders and heat patinas.

I made a few different groups with anywhere from 2 to 7 fish and bent them so they would be overlapping and emerging from behind other groups to try and capture movement and life. With the fish that were connected to each other I achieved depth by carefully grinding the details to create the illusion of many overlapping fish when in reality they were on the same flat piece of metal. Then once welded together I added individual standalone fish to the parts of the sculpture that had a gap or needed a bit more movement. This final touch really brought it to life. I even decided to create a couple separate individual mackerel to hang slightly in front or off to the side of the main school to really drive the point home that they could all be separate fish! I was unsure if it would end up reading correctly when complete but was quite happy with the final result!

See also my individual mackerel sculptures: Mackerel and King Mackerel.

This metal mackerel school sculpture is wall hanging, made entirely of stainless steel, colored using only heat patinas, and is safe to be kept outdoors!