About the artwork

'King'- Giant Pacific Octopus. 1.5 years in the making, the design of the creature was initially going to be free floating like the reference photograph. Giant Pacific octopuses are rarely in open water as they are an easy target for predators. They normally habituate rocks and caves where they can camouflage or stake out an ambush. For this reason I decided to create context. Inspired by the recent media coverage for climate change, I decided to create my own response. The title ‘King’ refers to king of the sea. Regrettably this majestic king is sitting on a throne of rubbish giving a sad visual representation of his future kingdom. I have composed a coral crown drawn from inspiration from The Little Mermaid’s, Triton. Many different types of sea trees, rocks and fauna were used to create the scene. 75% of the composition was made up from about 20 reference photos. I find this way of working (fantasy drawings) fairly alien so it took a long time to plan the composition, making sure the tones and textures were well balanced. The sea fauna and suckers proved a tedious task. The large amount of graphite kept smudging, adding to the frustration and I gave up a few times in the process. I finished the darkest tones with 9B graphite pencil and added wave texture in the background to create focus. The artwork comes ready framed, ready to hang and securely packaged with certificate of authenticity.