A contract on installing a painting at a new restaurant SEA ROCK which is the former location of the Hard Rock Cafe. In painting the mural, images of local reef fish and marine life were used. Three weeks into painting a discovery was made and the painting had to be removed and water leak behind mural cleaned up. With this under taken, a new direction was approached using photographs and reef on vinyl printed panels, which allowed us to meet the deadline for the opening.
There is extreme detail work done by Courtney Platt on the masking out each image. There is close to 1000 marine life animals in this mural. This has been a contributing effort to prepare and install this exhibit of Cayman Islands coral reef off the beaches around the island. Thanks to curators Kerwin Ebanks and Monte Thornton in the complete process of development, meeting design requirements, and installation with final treatments.
Some Unique things that are rare to see are as follows:
Sea Horse
Frogfish ( There are four in mural)
Flashlight Fish.
deep Sea crinoid on Wreck of Kirk Pride 880 feet down off Georgetown harbor.
Deep Sea Starfish 800 feet only one photographed.
So too start grouping fish together a formal fish identification process is helpful.
Fish ID Groups or broken into shapes of fish, coloration, where they live on the reef, what they eat as herabfors or conafor, then how fins specialize, and bone or cartilage. Next we add reef creatures, corals, turtles and whales.
Reference book for identification:
ID Group 1 – Disks & Ovals, colorful.
classification is used by identifying the following:
- Four-eye Butterfly
- Banded Butterfly
- Spot-fin Butterfly
- Queen Angelfish
- French Angelfish
Juvenile
- Gray Angelfish
- Rock Beauty
- Ocean Surgeon
- Doctorfish
- Blue Tang
Juvenile Blue Tang.
ID Group 2 – Silvery up.
- Bar Jack
- Creo Mackerel
- Tarpon
- Barracuda
- Yellowtail Jack
- Lookdown Fish
ID Group 3 – Sloping head, tapered body.
- French Grunt
- Blue-Striped Grunt
- White Grunt
- Pork Fish
- Margate
- Gray Snapper ( Mahogany Snapper)
- Red Snapper
- Schoolmaster
- YellowTail Snapper.
ID Group 4 – Small ovals.
Damsel fish –
- Brown Chromis
- Blue Chromis
- Bi-color Damselfish
- Yellowtail Damel
- Sarget Major
Hamlets –
- Barred Hamlets
- Indigo Hamlet
- Shy Hamlets
- Butter Hamlets
- Blue Hamlet
- Tan Hamlet
- Hybrid Hamlet
- Black Hamlet
ID Group 5 – Heavy bodies/large lips.
- Black Grouper. (Mycteroperca bonaci)
- Red Grouper
- Strawberry Grouper
- Coney. (Cephalopholis fulva)
- Goliath Grouper. (Epinephelus itajara)
- Graysby. (Cephalopholis cruentata) (3-5 BLACK SPOTS DORSAL FIN AREA)
- Nassau Grouper. (Epinephelus striatus) (Black spot at Tail)
- Tiger Grouper. (Mycteroperca tigris)(Spots in group of nine bands)
- Yellowfin Grouper. (Mycteroperca venenosa)
- Yellowmouth Grouper. (Mycteroperca interstitialis)
- Harlequin Bass
ID Group 6- Swim with pectoral fins or have obvious scales.
- Blue Parrot Fish.
- Redband Parrotfish
- Rainbow Parrotfish.
- Stoplight Parrotfish.
- Princess Parrotfish.
- Spotted Parrotfish.
- Queen Parrotfish.
- Midnight Parrotfish.
- Striped Parrotfish
- Blue head Wrasse
- Yellowhead Wrasse
- Creole Wrasse
- Yellowcheak Wrasse
- SlipperyDick Wrasse
- Clown Wrasse
- Blackear Wrasse
- Rainbow Wrasse
- Puddinwife Wrasse
- Rosy Razorfish
- Green Razorfish
- Pearly Razorfish
- Spotted Drum
Juvenile
- Hogfish
ID Group 7 – Reddish/big eyes.
- Long-spine Squirrelfish (White on doral spines)
- Squirrelfish ( Yellow on doral spines)
- Glass Eye Snapper
- Black Bar Squirrelfish
ID Group 8- Small, elongated bottom dwellers.
- Neon Goby
- Pallid Goby
- Bridled goby
- Glass Goby
- Peppermint Goby
- Masked Goby
- Patch-Reef Goby
- Sand-Canyon Goby
- Cayman Cleaning Goby
- Orangesided Goby
- Sharknose Goby – can have a YellowStripe Phase )
- Cleaning Goby
- Yellowline Goby
- Barsnout Goby
- Linesnout Goby
- Spotlight Goby
- Yellow nose Goby
- Caribbean Neon Goby
- Goldspot Goby
- Rusty Goby
- Tusked Goby
- Orangespotted Goby
- Cayman Greenbanded Goby
- Greenbanded Goby
- Redlip Blenny
- Sail-fin Blenny
- Yellowhead Jawfish
ID Group 9- Odd-shaped bottom dwellers.
- Peacock Flounder
- Spotted Scorpion fish
- Batfish
- Frogfish
ID Group 10- Odd-shaped swimmers.
- Ballon fish
- Porcupine Fish
- Sharpe nose puffer
- Honeycomb Puffer
- Box Puffer
- Smooth Trunkfish
Juvenile
- Scrawled Filefish
- White-spotted filefish
- Trumpetfish
- Queen Trigger fish
- Black Durgons
- Ocean Triggerfish
- Yellow Goatfish
- Sea horse
ID Group 11 – Eels.
- Spotted Moray
- Green Moray
- Ribbon Eel
ID Group 1 2 – Sharks & rays. (Cartilage)
- Southern Sting Ray
- Yellow Skate
- Manta Ray
- Eagle Rays
- Nurse Shark
- Caribean Reef Shark
- Bonnet Head Shark
- Greater Hammerhead
- Tiger Shark
- Beaked Whales
- Porpoise
- Dolphin
- Humpback
- Blue Whales
- Greenback sea turtle
- Logger Head Sea Turtle
- Hawksbill Turtle
- Leatherback
- Ridley’s Sea Turtle
- Spiny Lobster
- Caribean Purple Reef Lobster
- Slipper Lobster
- Arrow Crab
- Spider Crab
- Porcelain Crab
- Feather Duster Worms
- Christmas Tree Worms
- Pick Tipped Sea Anemone
- Isopod
- Remora
- Reef Squid
- Reef Octopus at Night glows in colors.
Manta Rays occasionally grace the reefs and play in scuba divers bubbles above them performing acrobat roll and circles.
Supermale Parrott fish.
