November 8 2024

I love the ocean and I think every ocean creature is beautiful in its own way, however my favorite are octopi. This is somewhat a throw back to freshman year when I drew one with pencil. I started with a simple sketch in my notebook and then I went staight to painting the background. I really wanted to show lighting so I made the entire canvas blue and then added a lighter blue and then white further up the canvas. Next I did a white somewhat sketch of where I wanted the octopus. I started with a really light orange and I tried to do a dot pattern which you can see underneath however I scrapped it and went for a more strange lighting affect in the end. I also added another arm in the process as I counted and relized I didn't have enough. Before I shaded my pieced I painted the suction cups on on the arms you can see them. A lot of people are scared of the ocean or even water in general which is what I have in mind when I paint sea life. I like to put them in a bright place where people can see them and just think of them not in a scary way but in a brighter way. The worst part about painting this was making it so each tentacle would be even. you can tell I did not overcome it as they arn't even and I didn't even add 8 of them. I did not go for a realist style for this piece as you can tell most octopi arn't pink. I would say this is more non-objective with a tad bit of surrealism.