I still can’t get enough of the beautiful fish paintings of Louis Renard. I have used them again in creating a fun rainbow fish display for my gallery wall.
It’s incredible to think that these beautiful tropical fish illustrations were painted in the early 18th Century. They are such bright, colourful, and fantastical paintings.
Louis painted over a hundred different fish in a fantastic array of colours. I thought it would be fun to select some of the most colourful vintage fish pictures and create a rainbow fish display.
I’ve already got a Louis Renard IKEA floor lamp hack in my living room, and these rainbow fish pictures will complement it. I also have a unique rainbow upcycled gallery wall of vintage George Shaw bird paintings.

The Rainbow Fish Pictures
The create my rainbow fish gallery, I carefully went through all the vintage fish paintings of Louis Renard and picked out my favourite colourful ones.
I have a colourful home, and I’m very fond of DIY rainbow decor. To add to it, I wanted to make a rainbow of fish. To create a rainbow fish gallery, I carefully went through all the vintage fish paintings of Louis Renard and picked out my favourite colourful ones.
I chose fish which was one of the primary colours of the rainbow. That is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo.
With the original fish prints, the fish were swimming from right to left. I think for a gallery wall, it looks better if the fish swim the other way, left to right. So in Photoshop, I flipped the fish paintings to float that way.
To download the rainbow fish pictures, click on the title above the colors you want.
Red Rainbow Fish Pictures

Orange Rainbow Fish Pictures

Yellow Rainbow Fish Pictures

Green Rainbow Fish Pictures

Blue Rainbow Fish Pictures

Indigo/violet Fish Pictures

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How To Make A Rainbow Fish Display
What you need
- Large picture frame – I used an old frame I already had. It was large enough to display 18 rainbow fish pictures.
- Watercolor inkjet paper – This paper is just like watercolor paper for painting and gives the printed rainbow pictures a good depth of colors. The texture and feel of the paper is much better than normal computer paper and make the prints look like real watercolor paintings.
- Glue dots
- The rainbow fish pictures: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo/violet.
Step 1: Print the coloured fish pictures onto the watercolour inkjet paper. Make sure you print in landscape mode and choose the best print quality option in the printer software menu options. Four fish should print onto each page.


Step 2: Next, four fish pictures are on each printed watercolour page. Instead of cutting each fish printout, I tore the paper to add to the handpainted look. Fold the paper over a metal ruler where you want to tear it. Brush a small amount of water on the fold and gently pull the paper. This will give the paper a nice feathered edge.



Step 3: Next, once all the fish pictures have been torn into individual prints, arrange them on your frame in a rainbow. The frame I used for this rainbow fish display was big enough for a 3×6 arrangement. I placed three fish of the same colour in each of the six rows, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.


Step 4: Once you are happy with the arrangement of the rainbow fish pictures, use glue dots to secure them in place.


All that’s left to do is hang the rainbow fish display on the wall. I didn’t put any glass on my picture frame. I like pictures without glass, as I prefer not to have any glare. Images without glass are also lighter and easier to hang.
The watercolour paper makes the fish pictures look like actual paintings. The colours on the paper look fabulous and bright too.


I also printed the botanicals for my DIY Christmas wall decoration on watercolour paper.
If you are fond of colorful sealife images you should check out some of the other collections on Pictureboxblue. Such as the amazing colorful coral reef illustrations or the sealife posters of Adolphe Millot. Many of the nature form art posters of Ernst Haeckel are also of sealife.
There are many more rainbow home decor ideas on Pillarboxblue.

Cecilia
Sunday 13th of September 2020
These are lovely, Claire! Pinned! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm!
claire
Tuesday 15th of September 2020
Thank you, glad you enjoyed them.
rachelle
Saturday 12th of September 2020
Beautiful diy Clair. The tip to use watercolor inkjet paper is really helpful. I agree about the decoupage - what a fun project that would be. Now what can I decoupage these cute fish to........
take care RR
claire
Tuesday 15th of September 2020
Thank you, watercolor paper really makes a difference to the prints.
angie
Thursday 10th of September 2020
love the post and how delicately you cared for each that you took. The colors of the fish are beautiful the original artist would be so happy come see us at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
claire
Friday 11th of September 2020
Thank you so much!
Teodora
Monday 7th of September 2020
This is lovely! I painted fish in my bathroom and I framed my sketches, but they are not so detailed and colourful as these. I would definately try something similar but with a different animal or birds. Thank you for sharing. :)
claire
Wednesday 9th of September 2020
Thank you, I bet the fish look great in your bathroom. I've seen some fabulous wallpaper that uses vintage fish paintings that I think would look fabulous in a bathroom.
Elena Wiggins
Saturday 5th of September 2020
This is so neat! My son loves animals and recently we visited a nearby aquarium, so fish are a new fascination. He would love something like this to stare at!
claire
Saturday 5th of September 2020
Thank you, they are beautiful fish to look at.