New Octopus!

Last year, I drew my first Giant Pacific Octopus, and it turned out amazing!!! It was my favorite piece I’d done for a while! It won me a Scholastic Gold Key, made my website look nice and professional, and opened my eyes to the concept of mixing nature and art! It was a real keystone in my artistic journey. Here it is:

I’m still super proud of this work. The colors make me happy.

I thought, since I loved this piece so much, I should do another one! But this time, with more color. The first octopus was made with a rather limited color palette, while still being unexpected for the subject matter. For this new octopus, I decided that NO color was off the table! And I chose to use a sketchier, more textural style, with no marker underdrawing to let some of the paper come through. Here’s how it turned out.

I ended up loving it. I’m really pleased with how the colors turned out, and the blending and form turned out nicely as well, I think. And the colors sort of bounce your eye around, creating a piece that I could look at for hours. But this piece, no matter how much I like it, is not as good as the first octopus for two main reasons.

First, the suckers. On Octopus 1, the suckers blend in nicely with the rest of the piece, creating a cohesive look that guides your eye gently around the piece. But in my latest octopus, the suckers stand out in a way that draws your eye away from the work as a whole and makes you focus on the things that break the mold, which in Octopus 1 are the eyes and face. That’s supposed to be the focus of a creature.

The second problem with this piece is one of the arms. If you look at the red arm in the lower middle, you’ll notice that the texture changes. The paper texture disappears and all that’s left is vibrant, smooth color, which wouldn’t be a bad thing except that that texture doesn’t occur anywhere else in the piece.

As a whole, I love the piece, but it still doesn’t quite meet the same level that the first octopus is on, which infuriates me to no end. But oh well… it seems like I’ll just have to try again! Hopefully my next attempt will be better yet!

Thanks for reading!