Inky The Octopus - Monoprint

Inky the octopus escaped from a New Zealand aquarium in 2016 when he climbed out of his tank, across the floor, through a drain and down a pipe into the sea.  Reading about his escapades was the first time I realised what an intelligent and complex creature an Octopus was.  

On this attempt I wanted to explore the potential for different sorts of mark making in monoprint and experiment more with the thicker watercolour paper.

I tested a number of different pens and other tools to find the effect I wanted.  As the paper is pretty thick I opted for a very sharp pencil as this gave the best combination of hard, intense definition when pressed hard and softer feel when used normally.  I also used a rubber to get a rubbed, diffused effect over larger areas.

I like the quality of the marks I ended up with, slightly blurred with harder lines in places.  The composition has also worked with the tentacles framing the face.  I think I can improve the quality of the tentacles and suckers though..