Octopus Discoveries

Octopuses

Octopi

Octopodes

All three are correct. They are all Plurals of ‘Octopus’.

I made this randomly detailed Pencil sketch as an Art Challenge.

Usually when I do a pencil sketch - I have endeavored to make it as loose and free-flowing as possible - like what you see here. The key to a good undersketch is that it is suggestive but doesn't map every single detail. The pencil sketch or "under sketch" should not be finished or polished. You want the painting or ink illustration on top of that to do the heavy lifting and bring all the detail.

Or else what's the point of an undersketch? As time has gone on, my Pencil sketches proudly show less and less effort is needed to communicate my needs for what comes next.

I used to make everything with the penciling - when I was ready to ink - there was almost no differentiation between the pencil lines and the ink lines. And then I'd erase the graphite and lament all that work - gone - like a Sand Mandala but sad rather than beautiful.

Then I learned to give up control. Let go. Sketch out the basic visual story I was telling and take the plunge. I add the complexities of my next medium which is much less forgiving than graphite. This is freaky at first - it feels like a high wire act. I could screw it up at any time.

And believe me I do.

Several times. It's heartbreaking. Over the years though - I got it. Sometimes, it takes even less than a year too. On the other hand, mistakes can be never-ending - always around the corner - there is another big failure when you least expect it - but you learn tricks - like happy accidents - adapting and using mistakes to take things in another direction.

How often I make these mistakes depends on the artist I want to be. If I 'niche' down as they say - I will begin to master your terrain quicker. The mistakes become more predictable and therefore easier to avoid. Sometimes though my niche doesn't push me as an artist so then it's good to branch out. Another reason for my art challenges series.

At this point we are getting into rendering the many intricate facets of this body. It starts to become exciting and meditative as I bring my strokes from light and non-committal as the under-sketch was to being final with the darker applied graphite of the drawing. This is taking me back to another time in my life...

We used to have sketchbooks in high school and the assignment was to draw reference throughout the week and we could draw some of our own things too. I had a lot of fun and I loved my sketchbook. It was like a great and kind friend who always had time for me and my mind.

I recalled those old sketchbooks - it was another time...

Before I was taking to heart the challenge of a finished ink illustration or a finished painting. I used to sketch. And sketching became obsessive to me - became finished pencil drawings. High school through College. I loved that. Bliss is a beautiful thing and it should be followed. I miss the joy of rendering in pencil and there is something gentle, calm, and stress-free about working in that way...

You can go as detailed as you want and the worst that can happen is you can erase it and start over. Ironic that I'm saying I love that in a moment working on a piece where I can't erase but still it is what it is... but back to my thinking the other day.

Then I thought I'd like to sketch another animal reference.

What if I could just take a detailed reference from nature and travel far away into it. Explore the place like... an OCTOPUS does in its new surroundings. That is what they do you know. They feel. Everything. Literally - they take all those arms all eight of which are bursting with sensory acumen and hold everything with simultaneous intelligence and processing power and they understand what they are doing. Sometimes wracking their mysterious brain until at last - they solve their puzzle. The arms are like their own brain extensions - times eight. You could sever an arm and it would change color according to its surroundings for about an hour!

So I am exploring this cephalopod as such a being explores its own environment.

How strange and beautiful this is. The pencil is bringing me a strange and easy sense of play. Mapping things out... I play an exercise with myself here - I am like a playful octopus sketching an Octopus.

It is a strange and beautiful being. I have to admit it feels like foreign territory. I never really created an Octopus piece before. Everything feels new. The interesting thing though is that after a while staring at it and rendering - it almost 'hypnotizes' you. The unknown begins to become known. That is an exciting moment. As I get to know this subject - I am seeing the past conceived Octopus notions flashing through my head as well as the current ones.

This is I think - the most intelligent of all the invertebrates. Like so many people in the Gen X contingent, Who have seen new technologies and theories keep building upon the studying of this most intriguing of species. I have grown up with many differing thoughts of the Octopus. I even once thought that its head was a big nose - I know I'm not alone. As a child it was goofy and always made me laugh out loud -

"Look at its big'ol nose ha! ha!"

It still looks that way. It looks dopey when I see that - but then I change my thoughts and see the big nose as a head and it looks like a vastly intelligent alien.

I thought it was a terrifying hunter better left alone because it would gobble me up with its beak. A Beak!". I was terrified by the giant squid in 20,000 leagues under the sea - and whilst I still find Squid among the most eerie things in the sea - the Octopus attains a more serene and playful mystique.

I still remember those old grainy Bill Burrud nature videos and I would thrill to the Octopus and its mortal foe the ghastly Moray Eel locked in a terrible battle. Of course having more and more information about them leads to learning about their camouflage. There are nocturnal deep sea Octopai and Diurnal ones. It seems the diurnal Octopuses developed a more complex pattern than did the nocturnes. The Diurnal species have a broader array of colors to use and they can blend in easier with more things since they are effectively showered by light. This makes them more susceptible to being discovered. And so the miracle of evolution and mother nature actually enhanced this ability.

It's exciting to learn of a subject as you are creating it. You can almost feel its incredible mind working. It is capable of doing countless things quickly and simultaneously and yet this piece has it floating - conserved and coyly through the waters.

The octopus is the master of disguise. I say this because it not only disguises perfectly into its surroundings - it does so incredibly Fast. Faster than the blink of an eye in some cases. Some species can only do one or a few shades of color at a time - whilst the others can sport a vast spectrum of light and shadow to replicate a barnacled rock that will make the best counterfeit artist jealous. They replicate the effect of a cloud of haze as it passes through the water around them.

As an artist I am stunned by what it can accomplish coming up with the colors that it does to attain the perfect likeness of the coral, rock, kelp whatever it touches. What makes this even more amazing?

This Being - adept as it is at making dramatic color changes to its own pigment - it is also thought to be color blind. How about that? The theory is that they are light sensitive. Kind of fitting that this one is black and white.

The surface of the octopus skin is covered with skin cells that are among the most unique in the world. They have three layers of color-changing and reflective cells. The first layer does three colors as does the middle layer and then 3 or four more colors in the bottom layer.

Takeaway. In the end this was an enlightening exercise. The unforeseen development was that this paper did not allow for much erasing but I felt that my skills of light and loose undersketches had helped me understand the terrain by the time I was 'finalizing' the piece. I kept thinking what if I now did something like this with ink - treated the pen like a simple pencil.

But there's the rub - I mean there's no rubbing the ink like you can with graphite. That is the other dimension to pencils. You can rub the paper. That is in some ways a form of erasing. It colors the page as well as clouds the area and then you can start over - but you have an amazing way of filling space and creating light and shadow - just with your fingertip or smudger. in lieu of erasing I soon found I needed to fall back on this technique more. This was a gift too as I generally don't use this technique - out of habit really. During this piece I got it in my consciousness and I was coming to rely on it.

So now we have this intriguing Octopus - floating like a specter with wonderfully rendered skin in a black and white world - albeit perhaps the color palette that the Octopus's vision may actually be. I can't help being in awe of all the independence and intelligence within each arm and all the suction cups on the tentacles. When you draw or paint one of these it's going to intense in a wild way that is unlike a lot of things in nature.

So that is my experience discovering an Octopus by way of the wonders of graphite. Hope it was a fun adventure for you as well. This has been another episode of the Gauntlet.

And there you have it the beautiful mysterious vastly intelligent octopus that many would say is not of this world. Proud member of the Octopuses, Octopi, and the Octopedes family. And I hope you got some value.

~Sol