Birthday Fish

Well, as of February 18th, I've been on this Earth for 20 years! Neat. To celebrate with friends, I took them to the Seattle Aquarium. Fortunately, it was Octopus Week! Unfortunately, it was a Sunday and packed with screaming, smelly patrons (and their children: equally as ill behaved). Despite this, however, I still got some good fish time in.
One fish in particular was excellent. We all associate fish with pretty unresponsive, boring animals. They just swim around and, well, swim around some more. But this guy was tons of fun.

I whipped out my pencil to start sketching him, but when I noticed he was watching me, I stopped.

I wiggled my pencil in front of the tank to see what he would do. I turned my pencil to the right, he leaned to the right. I shifted it to the left, he leaned left. Back and forth, back and forth-- he just kept staring at the pencil, mimicking it!

Stark took over the fish conducting so I could get a good sketch in (with my pen, of course). All the while Stark was moving the pencil uuuuup and dooooown and side to side. The fish was almost hypnotized by it. We even got him to turn upside down once or twice.

I've never had a fish at the aquarium be so... interactive! It was quite a treat. He is without a doubt my new favorite.

The sketches I did aren't anything special, but once I paint them (if I paint them) then I'll post them. In the meantime, have some more fish! (Ok, well, more fish and a sea anemone. And a wolf eel. Mostly fish though, I promise.)