Fishes of Australia

Fishes of Australia

Over many years of illustrating fishes for identification guides and a range of other publications I developed an ever increasing desire to create a truly comprehensive work on fishes. Most publications and guidebooks include only those animals of commercial or social interest, those seen by fishermen and divers, and are usually restricted to a particular region. My fascination though is with the entirety of the remarkable Australian fish fauna. I feel that fishes are form and function and habitat made flesh and they display the most extraordinary range of adaptations to the constraints of their underwater world. A Longtom, shimmering in crystal clear tropical waters could be a pure distillation of light, water and colour; a Stonefish could have spontaneously generated from the lumpy algae covered rocks themselves.

Fish Paintings

In 2008 I was approached by Penguin Books with the idea of creating a volume of my fish paintings, the principle idea being to showcase the art. However my art is inseparable from the science underlying it and once discussion began on the layout and organisation of such a volume, the opportunity arose to implement my dream of an exhaustive work on Australian fishes combining art and science. Penguin agreed and in 2009 I began work on “Swainston’s Fishes of Australia”.

It was only upon actually commencing work that I came to fully realise just how much was involved in such a project. The next two years of my life were totally consumed by it. There are some 340 families of fishes found in Australian waters, each required a description of the family and a large illustration of the most spectacular or important species representative of the family. This would be followed by a number of smaller illustrations of other members of the family, the number determined by the size of the family.

Fish Paintings

In 2008 I was approached by Penguin Books with the idea of creating a volume of my fish paintings, the principle idea being to showcase the art. However my art is inseparable from the science underlying it and once discussion began on the layout and organisation of such a volume, the opportunity arose to implement my dream of an exhaustive work on Australian fishes combining art and science. Penguin agreed and in 2009 I began work on “Swainston’s Fishes of Australia”.

It was only upon actually commencing work that I came to fully realise just how much was involved in such a project. The next two years of my life were totally consumed by it. There are some 340 families of fishes found in Australian waters, each required a description of the family and a large illustration of the most spectacular or important species representative of the family. This would be followed by a number of smaller illustrations of other members of the family, the number determined by the size of the family.

In all over 1500 illustrations which I scanned, colour-corrected and photoshopped and finally a comprehensive list (created by CSIRO) of every member of each family ever recorded in Australian waters. A mammoth undertaking indeed. My working weeks rapidly expanded to 7 days and over 100 hours. I worked at night on research and writing, often till 3-4am, then began the next day at 8-9am to paint the nearly 300 extra illustrations need to complete the coverage. A couple of hours off in the evenings to be with my extremely understanding and long suffering family, then back to work again. After two long years of work, supported patiently by my partner Catherine my work on the book was finally complete.

The team at Penguin books did a superlative job designing and editing the book, I cannot speak highly enough of the work they carried out. I have still not found a single mistake in over 4500 fish names listed in the book, and they discovered every single error I personally made in writing the text for this 900 page tome.

However just as this labour of love by many people involved was about to be introduced to the pubic there came a final twist. The long awaited book launch was cancelled at the final hour, the red marker ribbon used in the book was found to be not colour fast, leaving a pink stain on the pages where it was used. Despite extensive testing and examining a variety of alternatives, the decision was taken by Penguin to withdraw the book from sale and tragically some 5000 copies were turned into pulp. It would be another year before the book was finally reprinted and released to the public.

The launch party went ahead nonetheless and those attending were able to purchase one of only 100 red ribbon volumes which I kept aside, numbered and signed. Swainston’s Fishes of Australia has now been reprinted three times and is a much-loved addition to the collections of many fishers, divers and marine life enthusiasts around Australia.