04 Oct Bottle Cap Mosaic Fish No. 10, 2005

Bottle Cap Mosaic Fish No. 10, 2005
plywood, primer, bottle caps, bronze sheet, rake, brass nails
18″ x 55.5″ x 1.5″

This fish is made from Amstel Light and Bass Ale bottle caps. The fins are cut from bronze plate and the tail is a rake. All the caps are partially crimped but not flattened and then nailed to double-primed plywood with copper nails.

Before Budweiser came out with the red colored cap they use now, I was saving Amstel Light Caps as the only real source of red other than Coke. I finally used them on this fish and was totally blown away by how gorgeous they turned out. The red and gold with black lettering just gleams when the sun hits it and has a totally different effect than I could have guessed just by looking at the caps jumbled up in a bin.

The key here is aligning the caps precisely. You can get a sense of how good they look in the second photo, but this one really just has to be seen in person to get the full effect. I’m definitely going to do more using these. The different tone of red and gold from the Bass Ale caps plays off the Amstel caps very nicely too. I also really like the bronze sheet on the fins.