Story of the Psychedelic Critters

Once Upon A Time I found an old box of art supplies.
I am talking about from high school art supplies.
I have no idea how they lasted this long or through so many moves. I really don't know why I decided to keep them.
But I am so glad I did because they inspired a new art project that I can do while the sewing machine is unavailable to me.
I decided to use the brightest bits of art things I could find for this project. Brightest ended up being some very old, half demolished, oil pastels that I had attacked with no amount of skill back in Freshman year of high school.

 I hadn't touched these in years and knew I had to do some serious experimenting in order to figure out how to use them again. But the challenge of only have about ten colors to work with, and their very temperamental way of adding those colors, was an adventure I couldn't pass up.
It should also be noted that my laptop was down and I didn't have access to a lot of my usual distractions. I blame that for this wild tangent.
I had used these before and remembered vaguely being frustrated that I hadn't created the kind of image I had mentally planned. This was most likely due to the fact that in high school I wasn't amazingly concerned about planning things out before I did them. That went for art, social interactions, presentations, and writing assignments.
I don't really feel like revisiting my teenager frustrations as well as art material, so I decided to plan out something somewhat simple.
My Lovely and I had been talking about barn owls a lot, so I decided to just mess about with doing a barn owl pastel work.
Using all my new grown up planning skills, I drew out the most basic idea of a barn owl. I tried to keep it rough so I wouldn't get distracted by the drawing the therefore not want to add colors. A constant struggle of mine.

I used many reference pictures and kind of mashed them up into my own design for the idea to work. I didn't just want to copy another person's picture.
We are expecting a little one soon, so I decided to make it simple and colorful in order to become a nursery art piece. Because even if it turns out terribly, the Spawn won't know the difference. Hopefully. I really don't know if I can raise an art critic. He will be disillusioned with me so fast. Let's keep him thinking Mommy is cool for as long as possible.
I knew that I wouldn't get a lot of detail work out of the pastels, so I kept myself thinking this was more of an abstract owl. And adding lots of colors that were not natural for barn owl, or any owls, helped with that. I just kept thinking, "This is ART" to myself when I felt I had gone too far with the crazy colors.
I liked the result.

Okay, more than liked. I was pretty darn impressed with myself. It is better in person, I promise. I just have a horrible phone camera and half lighting in my apartment to work with.
My Lovely walked by this piece multiple times. "I like that owl."
So I knew it was good. And he really likes barn owls.

Well, I can't leave a good thing well enough alone. So I decided to try my hand at it again.
This time I would go with something a little more naturally colorful. So the crazy colors would make more sense in the nursery. And I don't want the art in our little Spawn's room to be too grown up. Or all predatory animals.
So I picked an octopus next.
I will freely admit a lot of that decision was because I have a friend that is amazingly obsessed with octopus of any kind, and I knew if I could get her approval on it, I was golden.
So I sketched out an octopus using multiple reference pictures again.

I think it is safe to say I don't really understand how octopus are put together or their natural colors. I knew octo- meant eight, so I made eight tentacles. I saw a lot of big eyes so I got some of those in there.
But the real octopus pictures I was looking at had some amazingly creepy eyes. Rectangular pupils. I was a little worried that it would take away from the fun nature I was trying to create. And I don't want our baby terrified of his own nursery's art work.
So I colored everything as brightly as possible. I used every single one of the ten colors available and did a lot of finger smudging. I save the eyes for last.
Finally, at the very last moment, I decided I would make the eyes a solid black to look almost like doll eyes I would use for my other crafts. But I would stay true to the rectangular of the pupils by adding the shine to the eyes with a white pastel on top of the black that would mimic how it would hit a rectangular pupil, while still being cute. "It is ART!"

I tried. I think it is cute. Very appropriate for a child's room.
My goal is to get enough material that I can open up an Etsy store. I would love to add things like this octopus. So I was pleased that it turned out.
I got a lot of good reviews by friends and family that I spammed the social media feeds of with these pictures.
And that friend I mentioned that has a love affair with all things octo? She thinks he is amazing and decided that he looked like an Alphonse. So this is Alphonse, the psychedelic octopus. He is happy to meet you. He likes bubble baths and face hugs. Careful, he is not good at knowing when there has been too much affection.

I continued the experiment with a mouse. Because mice are supposed to be cute, right? Something like that?
And I figured big ears are good.
I attempted the same basic idea of the previous two. I wanted to bring in somewhat normal colors for a mouse, and also a few others to keep with the psychedelic theme.

Here is the result. I sketched him out first and colored him in a near panic, thinking it was wrong the entire time.
Can I tell you a secret? The mouse got away from me a little bit. I am not pleased with every aspect of him.
But the two year old I asked to review all three animals liked the mouse the best, so he gets to stay. Two-year-olds know their stuff, and who better to approve a nursery series than someone just able to communicate the sensibilities of children?
So there.

I plan to continue the series. I will frame the ones I like best for my personal nursery, and hopefully put the others away to sell on Etsy. I am thinking I can recreate a lot of the same animal. I will use the same positions of the animals, and sell them as they are made, as originals.
Because there is no possible way I would be able to recreate the exact same color patterns. I will sell them each as is, and take orders of certain animals, as long as people are aware they will turn out slightly different each time.
I suppose I could also get into prints if there were enough interest. But I try to not think that far ahead.

My Lovely has requested a cow next in the Psychedelic Critter series. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with a multi colored spotted cow being hilarious to him.

I have no idea how this is going to go.
I will keep you all updated.
Let me know what else you would like to see in the color storm that is this project.
What art supplies do you still have in a box that you would like to pull out and make a mess with?
Let me know.

Smile Always.