CrashOctopus Blog

La Push II by Meg Lyman

Gouache in Moleskine

La Push I by Meg Lyman

Gouache in Moleskine

Norway Boat by Meg Lyman

Water soluble pencils in Moleskine

Akershus Castle by Meg Lyman

Water soluble pencils in Moleskine

I’m jusssst starting out with this plein air thing. It’s fun but also challenging. For my first few tries, I picked things that wouldn’t move or change much with fairly static lighting conditions. For the two in gouache, which I painted in La Push, WA last week, I used a 1/2″ flat exclusively. I had used mostly round brushes before, and the big (for me) flat was handy and limiting. For doing quick outdoor sketchy paintings, switching brushes isn’t really worth the time. Also your paint piles dry really quickly, so work fast!

Qiang Workshop I by Meg Lyman

Qiang Workshop II by Meg Lyman

As I mentioned, I had a workshop last weekend with Qiang Huang at the Whidbey Island Fine Arts Studio. It was a great learning experience, and like the other classes I’ve attended, I left feeling a strange combination of exhilarated motivation and bewilderment that I ever manage to paint anything worth looking at. After seeing great artists work, I have a very distinct feeling that I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s obviously not true, because I will slowly incorporate more and more of the things I learned from Qiang into my paintings. But for now I still feel like I’m painting with, as classmate Heywood put it, a sawed-off fence post.

I present these class works to you as they were when I left the workshop. The first one was about three hours (and a poorly-focused photo, sorry) and the second about six in 2 three-hour sessions – and the extra time shows. Plus, the master himself put a few strokes on the cloth in the second one! I could put some hours in retouching and fixing the things I see that are wrong with both of them, but I’ve found I learn better when I hold those errors in my mind. The unresolved issues jump out at me from the canvas and I strive to never let them show up again.

Speaking of canvas, I grabbed two Blick linen canvases on clearance for this workshop. It’s the first time I’ve used linen (as opposed to cotton) and I looooooooove it. It’s harder to find but now I crave it. Delicious, delicious linen.

Ghost Crab by Meg Lyman

Ink on ACEO

For sale – Etsy link

Here’s a tiny old piece of artwork that I just put in my Etsy store. It’s really a placeholder – I had a workshop last weekend with the fantastically talented and awesome Qiang Huang at the Whidbey Island Fine Arts Studio. It was a blast and I will post about it later this week once I get my demo paintings photographed.

I’m finally starting to lay paint on this background (see the bottom of the post). The magenta underpainting is slicker than snot on a doorknob, and the first layer of paint didn’t stick to it very well in some places. It’s reminiscent of the trials and tribulations I had painting with oils on smooth Gessobord. So, perhaps my problem with that whole thing was a lack of tooth. I’ll sand the gesso less next time and let you know.

Anyway, this is my first painting using gamut mapping. I had my color wheel all ready and cut a triangle into a sheet of palette paper. I picked my gamut and taped the sucker down.

My three primary tubes are Primary Green Light, Quin. Red, and Cerulean Blue. I wanted to start with the neutral grey in the middle, and so mixed the three together. Looks pretty neutral to me, maybe a bit brown. Excellent. I added white to give myself two shades:

I proceeded to paint it onto the magenta underpainting. The more I painted, the greener it looked. It’s a pretty cool effect to see just how relative color is in our brain! The color on the palette looks nothing like the color on the board. And once I paint over the magenta, it’ll look different yet again.

p.s. you can see how it was tough to get the grey to stick to the underpainting. I love learning.

I have short-sleeved t-shirts of my Rainbow Octopus artwork! Sizes S-XXL are available. Head over to Etsy for details, including more photos.

Etsy link to Rainbow Octopus T-Shirts

Nautilius by Meg Lyman

10×10″ gouache and ink on illustration board

$150 – Etsy listing

Born long ago in the ancient undersea city of Atlantis, Nautilius was a hero of the ages. While he lacked in wits, as most nautilus do, he excelled strength and bravery. Amongst his greatest feats were Slaying the Invasive Lionfish Horde and Fending Off the Mighty Kraken, saving Atlantis from certain destruction. His heroism is a shining example to young nautlettes throughout the oceans today.

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Sometimes I get thinking that I give nautilus too much credit, because they’re so dumb. But then I remember they are twice as old as dinosaurs and could eat my face.

Wingman Brewers P-51 Porter is local to me. All their beers are aviation themed, so I had to try. This one has a rich aroma and a toasted flavor with a hint of sweet that turns slightly bitter at the end. Smooth.

Lemon Shark by Meg Lyman

4×4″ gouache on Claybord Textured, now known as Aquabord

Etsy listing

He’s a bit of a sourpuss.

This is, of course, a continuation of the shark pun obligation I created for myself when I painted Blue Shark. Below are a few WIP shots showing how I used masking fluid for this one. It’s very helpful for flowing underwater backgrounds, although the stuff I use is blue and that makes it harder to see underwater. So to speak.

Painted-over masking fluid (applied along the edge of the shark outline)

Masking removed, imperfectly so. Workable nonetheless.

Javactopus by Meg Lyman

5×7″ gouache and ink

SOLD

This is how I feel on weekend mornings after 3 cups of coffee. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Skull Still Life I by Meg Lyman

8×8″ oil on panel

$125 – Etsy listing

I’m attending an oil painting class by Qiang Huang next month. He’s a brilliant artist and does mostly still life. I hope to learn more about the use of large brushes and edge quality from him.