Octopus

This project was the last one for this year of 2D Design, I was given a paper that had just 20 circles evenly spaced on water color paper. The prompt was to turn the circles into something, this project was pretty open ended and the materials and theme was totally up in the air. I was thinking of a way I could use the circles some how in the image other than just laying over. My first idea was to do a mountain in the background by I thought that would be too simple. So I thought of doing an octopus because it worked with the rest of the theme of circles. I wanted to have the legs wrapping around and intertwining the circles. I also wanted to use acrylic paint for this because it was a material that I focused a lot on this year and felt that it would be a good thing to end the year with.

I began this project by looking at the paper and trying to come up with an idea that would incorporate the circles, once I had my idea I began to draw out the octopus on the paper. I began with a light sketch using a hb pencil then once I had the outline done I went in with a darker pencil to get the outline that I wanted. Once that was done I began to paint, I wanted to use acrylic paint for this project because I thought it would cover nicely. I started with the green blueish background and painted each circle being careful to not get any paint on the outside. After the circles were all painted in I began to add a pinkish orange color to get the base color for the octopus. I started with the top left and worked my way over and down as to not drag my hand through the paint. Then I went back in with a finer paint brush and added more detail to the legs, mixing colors to get more depth. Once that was done I went in and added some small bubbles to the water to give it less of a flat look. Then I wanted to connect the background all together but I really liked the white so I used a pen to add small details connecting the octopus.

I really liked this project although I wish I had more time and the chance to do something different with it because half way through I thought of another idea what would have tied the whole thing together much nicer. So if I were to do this project again I would have changed my idea and spent more time on it. I really liked the idea of the project and wish that there was more time to have worked on it. I felt that this project was a good way to end the year, because it was super up in the air and let us do what we wanted and use the materials that we wanted.