Meet Atamagai, the Purple Octopus

Someone recently mentioned that a purple octopus would complete her collection. And I thought, yes, it would! I haven’t done a sparkly purple octopus yet, so, challenge accepted!

I started with markers, as I usually do, and I intended to use the watercolor powders to enhance the background. But I wanted to have more control, I didn’t want the octopus color to completely bleed into the background color this time.

I also did not want this octopus to  have an outline, since I was planning to color it in and then add sparkling watercolors as the finishing touch.

When I applied water to the painting, I wasn’t happy with the way the paper interacted with it. The result felt flat to me. So I used a cold press paper and tried again, making the octopus smaller this time. Cold press paper has a rougher texture while hot press paper is smooth. I’m much happier with the way the second one (right) dried, the background on this one is incredible! (To be written about separately)

I thought, uh-oh, now I’d better not mess up this second octopus! So I started with the lesser of the two as practice. I began painting with gouache, which is a little more opaque than watercolors, and it created a very stark contrast, but maybe it was a bit too intense.

I tried to blend the gouache a little more with the darker parts, and it didn’t really come together until I added the sparkly paint. That brought both the high tones and low tones to the middle ground.

I tried mixing some white gouache with a silver sparkly paint for the suckers on the octopus, but the combination didn’t turn out exactly how I had hoped. It’s mostly white, but that’s okay. I’m considering this one a “test” piece. I will make different choices when I do the next one. I’m still very, very happy with this one, and I think it’s beautiful!

Atamagai means “clever” or “smart” in Japanese.

See how it was made and how it sparkles.

Would you hang it on your wall?