Stripers on the Feed

I have often dreamt of catching striped bass, but with it being a native species of the Atlantic coastline of North America, I realized the closest that I was going to get to this beautiful fish was by painting it.

I spent quite a bit of time watching underwater footage of these stripers feeding in shallow water and loved the idea of setting the scene against the weedy shallow reef. I wanted to portray the striped bass actively feeding, the prolific menhaden seemed to the obvious choice as baitfish.

Preliminary Sketch