Bigeye Tuna “Marlin’s Menu” Art Print

Bigeye Tuna, Diamond Squid, Skipjack Tuna, Chub Mackerel, Gemfish, Black Marlin
Thunnus obesus, Thysanoteuthis rhombus, Katsuwonus pelamis, Rexea solandri, Makaira indica

This commission for a Smithsonian exhibit on black marlin started my whole love affair with tunas. Black marlin are so big and fast that they can take down hundreds of pounds of hot-blooded Bigeye Tuna, and the variety of prey the huge marlin eat are the focus of this piece. Until this job I had mostly illustrated reptiles and amphibians so I had to learn a lot about marine fish, fast. A month of in-depth research — including talking a D.C. fish market into saving me a small, un-gutted tuna to study — progressed into a detailed sketch and then 24 hours straight of watercolor painting to meet the deadline.  By then I was completely hooked on these stunning fish. Since then I have gone to Bermuda to dissect tunas with an expert, to the San Bernardino Mountains near L.A. for the annual conference of tuna biologists, and ultimately wound up moving to Monterey, California, to work with Stanford researchers who satellite tag wild tunas and to be near the Monterey Bay Aquarium where they swim in a million-gallon tank. The exhibit it all started with is no more after renovations at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, but this print captures the excitement for me of first falling in love with the greyhounds of the ocean back in 1996.