octopus

Indian Ink on Paper - 760x560mm - 2012

This is the first large scale ink and brush drawing I did. Back in 2012 I was working a full time job and drawing on weekends or whenever I had some free time. I worked as a Finished Artist in advertising frantically building printed advertisements or catalogue pages all day long, this left my eyes exhausted at the end of the day. I had tried drawing after work but this left my eyes watering\crying, I figured that wasn’t a good sign and I shouldn’t push them too hard.

I don’t mind working a job, in fact I quite enjoy what I did (now casually do) for a living. However, it allowed no time for the things I love like drawing, reading and thinking about life stuff. At the time I was going through a period of depression and didn’t have the time to do the things that made me happy. I was also thinking about the nature of a job specifically having to constant learn new skills out of fear of being unemployed. I didn’t want to learn out of fear. I want to learn out of curiosity about things that interest me.

Lacking any skills that allow me to make money apart from my Finish Art abilities I decided to give the artist life a shot. Spending my time doing the thing that I love for a living is something I could do until I die. I have no problem working until I die so long as it’s drawing. I don’t jump into things unwarily. I have a good enough idea about myself to know that I could easily have spent my free time watching movies and playing video games.

My friend asked me to draw her an octopus tattoo. I don’t particularly like it when people ask me to draw them a tattoo, it’s flattering but I figure it’s a request best made to an actual tattoo artist. Also it’s very rare for a person to follow through and actually get the tattoo. When a good friend asks for a tattoo though I tend to put my misgivings aside.

I use this drawing as a test to see how well I could apply myself to drawing. I took 2 weeks of leave from work to challenge myself on doing my largest drawing in the shortest period of time (it had previously taken me 3-4 weeks to do an A3 drawing). I failed. I didn’t even get close to finishing it. I did work hard on it every day though. I proved to myself that I could dedicate myself to drawing.

I quit my job shortly after to pursue an art career. Which still hasn’t happened but pursuing art has so far given me a lot of unexpected and life enriching rewards. It’s a choice I haven’t regretted.

The drawing was done at a pivotal moment in my life and played a part in it.

The drawing was also a failure in that the size is way too big for a tattoo unless a person wanted it over the bulk of their torso. I originally tried to sketch the octopus straight onto the paper and this worked out terribly, I didn’t like the shape at all, it’s easy to tell when something in a drawing isn’t working out, it’s best to stop and do some practice study and then get back to it. Which is what I did. The second round of drawing the silhouette was great.

I was heavily into my science and planets during that time of my life, I thought it would be neat with the octopus having 8 tentacles could take care of the 8 planets of our solar system. A mothering deity guiding the planets around the sun. A gravity octopus?

When life shines through water it makes a rippled net pattern, I wanted to incorporate that on the octopus and as I started inking I accidentally gave the octopus a stone or wood texture. A happy accident. Drawing suction cups sucks, there are so many and how they change perspective, nearly melted my brain doing them. I haven’t had the willpower to do suction cups again after this drawing.

The octopus was entirely done with a 20/0 script brush, which is such a dumb thing to do. All my early ink drawings were done with 20/0 script brushes because it was tiny and I liked drawing in tiny details. I didn’t know anything about brushes at the time, still kind of don’t. Then I finally tried out mini liner brushes and more recently round brushes and oh my fuck using bigger brush sizes saves me so much time. Back then I would rigidly try to draw in every detail, now I more Bob Ross the drawing, work out ways to make the brush do some happy accident details. Much more fun. Quicker as well.

Sorry that was such a long read, I hope it wasn’t just a giant bore that made your skull crack from my over indulgence of self.

Thanks for looking and huge thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Oh! The paper I got was really textured which made inking with a tiny flimsy brush frustrating, I flipped out in a rage multiple times while drawing this. I also discovered upon competition that I drew on the wrong side of the paper. Lessons well learned.