Out of My Box

finished sea creatures art journal spread

I’m amazed at how out of my box this art journal spread turned out to be. But then, it began that way too!

The Problem of Leftover Paint

I’ve watched videos from more than a few artists who find it difficult to have leftover paint on their palettes and then throw it away. Instead, they often scumble the paint randomly on a blank art journal page, thereby making a sort of “beginning” for that page.

For whatever reason, it doesn’t bother me to throw away paint left on my palette, but the other day I had an unusually large amount of it, so I thought I’d smear it on an art journal page and see what it inspired.

leftover paint finds a home on an empty art journal page

What Did it Suggest?

The colored page sat there for quite a while, not inspiring me much at all. But then I found myself with only a few spreads to do before my journal would be full. So I finally tackled this one.

Nothing popped to mind immediately as I sat contemplating the colors and pattern. But I thought maybe they were ocean colors, despite the purple! Then I did something else that is uncharacteristic for me—out of my box, in fact. I found myself drawing a face—very, very lightly.

a face appears out of the purple on the art journal page

Out of My Box

The next thing to do was, obviously, paint the face. But I found that difficult. Drawing faces is hard enough, but painting them is even harder. Nonetheless, I just started and then kept going. I’m not particularly happy with it. The eyes are too big and the nose just below the eyes is too flat. I tried to fix the flat nose, but didn’t really succeed. I may go back to it. There really didn’t seem to be much I could do about the eyes, though. It was really frustrating.

What could I do but continue? So, after pouting a bit - onwards!

really, really big hair

Time for Hair

Given her skin tones, she doesn’t particularly look like she’s underwater, but it felt like she should be. I didn’t want to add blues or green to her face, as that would be garish. But I thought I could suggest that she’s underwater with the motion through her hair. And its color! As long as I'm already out of my box, I may as well travel even further.

What is she? Surely, a supernatural creature of some sort.

I worked the hair with NeoColor II water-soluble crayons, then activated and fixed them with Liquitex Matt Gel Medium. I applied the medium with my finger, running along the lines of crayon so as to preserve their direction.

Creatures Appear

Obviously, I needed more elements in my spread. I could have done more with the background, but as I was considering that, a few ghostly creatures showed up!

The octopus is a little scary, don’t you think? But our young lady doesn’t seem to be bothered by him. Maybe she’s used to him running his tentacles through her hair. Maybe he thinks the strands of hair are a strange kind of tentacles. Who knows what an octopus thinks, although we know they think quite a bit!

The shell, however, is benign—at least for now.

Giving Life to the Sea Creatures

So the next task was to paint the octopus and the shell.

Here, I needed to make some important color decisions. So far, the spread is very cool‒appropriate for an underwater piece—but also nearly monochromatic, and not very interesting.

It was time for more varied color.

the finished sea creatures art journal spread

I looked online at images of octopuses and shells. The shell color I could have done without any research, but I was at a loss regarding the octopus.

The internet is such a wonderful resource. I often think back to the days of my youth when the only source would have been books, which would have meant traveling to a good library and then taking lots of notes. We artists have it so good these days!

I found an image of an octopus which looked translucent, with patches of different colors which appeared to be just under his skin, so that’s the look I went for. The octopus—and also the shell—gave me the opportunity to extend the color palette of my spread. And that, in turn, was an opportunity to warm things up.

I think these additional colors—orange, green, and turquoise—really helped, not just be extending and warming the palette, but also by repeating the warmth of the young girl’s face. I even decided to add a warmer red-violet to the background.

Finishing Touches – The Funnest Part

I noticed that the area of her chest looked like she was wearing a filmy garment. So I got my white Posca paint pen and added small shell motifs trying to make it look like a lace fabric.

And then, how could I resist jewels? I raided my stash of flat-back pearls and gave her a choker and that little thing across her forehead. I think it’s called a fillet.

I often use lines or spirals of dots, and I did so in this piece too. I particularly like the ones which follow her strands of hair.

Finally, another creature showed up—the tiny, dark crab in the opening of the shell.

Assessing

As I’ve said, this was an unusual piece for me. I doubt I’ll be smearing much leftover paint on empty art journal pages, and there are things about this spread which I don’t like. For me, the face is just wrong. Although I tried to correct the flatness of her nose, I didn’t succeed. And as I look at her now, I see that her eyes don’t work as a pair. If I cover the right eye, the left one looks OK. And if I cover the left eye, the right one looks OK. They just don’t work together. And the more I look at them, the more they bother me.

On the plus side, I really like the color palette and especially the purple which is a color, along with red, that I seldom use. Once I’m done with a piece, I like to figure out what color scheme I used, and this one is basically a split complement. The complements are blue and orange, but green and violet, which lie on either side of blue on the color wheel, are also included. I guess that in a strict split-complement, the blue would not be included, and blue-green would replace green and blue violet would replace violet. Oh, well…

The Bottom Line

Although this piece was unusual for me, and also uncomfortable, and in some important ways unsuccessful, I think it has potential and I would enjoy making a more finished piece along these same lines. I’d concentrate on improving the face, would make the hair less coarse and flow a little better, and would add more sea creatures. It could be really challenging, and fun!