Octopus Dreams #1 – A small gouache painting

This last week has very much been an Octopus Week for me. 🙂

It began when I watched My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. At first I thought it was going to be a natural history program, but after about 25 minutes it was clear it was more of a memoir. It’s about a professional film-maker who became really burnt out in his life. Then he attempted to find his way back to himself, his work and his family through a friendship he made with a wild octopus. It was actually quite wonderful – I really enjoyed it.

Then, once I was in the mood for Octopuses, I came across a fellow blogger’s excellent book review of Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus. Again, I thought the book would be more of a natural history tome but again it was really a memoir and this was all to the good as it was also a very enjoyable read!

So I have decided to create two or three octopus pictures over the next few weeks.

Simple Gouache Painting

This week I worked on a simple octopus painting in gouache. It’s a painting of the famous and deadly Blue-ringed Octopus. The animal itself is gorgeous looking, but carries enough venom to kill 26 adults despite being really quite small!

One night when I couldn’t sleep I scribbled down the idea for this picture on an envelope…

Then I made a clearer drawing on a piece of cardboard I reclaimed from the packaging which comes when you buy books online.

Next I painted the background but forgot how very opaque gouache can be so I lost my initial drawing!

I redrew it quickly in pencil and then got my paints out.

I painted the local colour of the octopus first…

…and then put in some basic shading to indicate the three dimensional shape of the animal and it’s basic colour pattern.

Once that was done I went to town of the details of the rings and the richer darker tones of the octopus right next to it’s rings. Finally I added some white to give the octopus a shine. Here is finished painting…

Reflections

My aims with this painting were to try to show the dimensionality of the animal’s legs. I wanted to use a colour scheme which included the bright blue the animal shows in it’s rings when it feels threatened. Finally I wanted the octopus to look like it was floating free in space with his legs all out around him.

The idea I had of putting in the shine was something I was in “two minds” about. An object which is underwater doesn’t show this effect since it is created by the thin film of water on the object when surrounded by air. However as humans, frequently we visually “read” this effect as indicating wetness. In the end I decided to put communication of the slimy, wet, feeling of an octopus above the physics of underwater reflection.

Next week – I’ll be starting a large octopus ink drawing which will probably take a couple of weeks to complete. (I think it’s pretty appropriate to draw and octopus in ink!!!) 🙂

The Eagle, the Endoscopy and the Exit

The day I made this drawing of an eagle’s head I had had an endoscopy. The doctor gave me some strong sedation before the procedure, which was very effective. Afterwards I went home to my parents house and relaxed while waiting for my son to come home from college and for the sedation to wear off. As I waited I did a few sketches and some inking. I was very relaxed. One of the sketches was this eagle…

The following weekend I found some time to paint him…

Over the past few weeks I’ve been finding more time and energy to paint as I’ve left (exited) my church.

I found going there increasingly stressful. Playing the piano was part of it but more than that I had trouble managing my relationships and being together with so many people at once. I found I was beginning to dread it. There was too much noise and it was too busy and I was expected to have too much communication with people for my autistic mind to manage. Every time I got things wrong I became more stressed about interacting. It was like a finger puzzle, the harder I tried to make things right the worse things got until I couldn’t do it anymore.

Initially I was going to have a temporary break but I kept getting nightmares about going back so now I have decided to make this change permanent. The relief is incredible. I feel like I can breath again. I am also very sad though, because there were so many really good people there and I miss them. I guess with the autism it was always going to be a difficult place for me. The fact is I can’t manage it.

Holidays, Retreat and Autism

I’ve been really lucky this year with holidays.  Our main holiday was a week away with the church in Devon (more of that on subsequent posts as I had a chance to draw and paint while I was there).  We got back on Saturday.  It was brilliant to be away with the church family.  We are such a diverse group of people and yet we are all bound together by a common faith and a lot of love.  What’s more there were a number of other teenagers there so my fabulous son had more interesting company than me available to spend time with, or whatever it is that teenagers do these days – chillax?  🙂

Now we’re home though my son is spending some time with his Dad and I was planning to  get a place at a retreat house deep in the Essex countryside. Pleshey Retreat House

It’s a wonderful place.  Unfortunately I need to take care of some things here at home so I’m going to have to postpone it.  It’s still good to know that it’s there when I can get the time.

One of the big advantages of having an ASD diagnosis (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) is that I can take account of my autism and organise things for myself, like a retreat to Pleshey, which help me to deal with it.  The two main issues I have are:

1. Issues with sensitivities – particualrly noise sensitivity and touch sensitivity although strong light also bothers me.  (In fact for me noise and touch feel like the same thing – that’s why I hate certain noises because they feel like a kind of touch to me and it feels like my personal boundaries are broken.)
2. Issues with communication with people (I don’t have difficulties with animals – in fact I love being with animals and find them very relaxing.)  I think there are a few main things I find difficult:

• I don’t understand fast or easily what people are communicating to me because I can’t automatically or naturally ‘get it’.  I have to work at it, processing it more like a computer than a person and it’s difficult.  I used to be much better at this and could go un-noticed except for occasional bad slip-ups.  But since I developed a chronic pain condition it’s become more difficult because some of my brain power is taken up with the pain and there’s not enough left to logically parse communications at the same speed as everyone else anymore.
• I am completely literal (which causes no end of problems and misunderstandings because, as well as understanding what is told to me literally and to the letter,I also communicate what I want to say literally which often means I have to qualify everything and explain everything in detail which people have told me is irritating and makes me look a bit odd.
• I can’t tell what people are feeling unless is blindingly obvious, e.g. if someone is crying a lot and saying they are so sad then I know they are sad.  I look for signs to help me guess but there is always the danger of getting it wrong and causing a problem so I sometimes just ask people.
• I find it hard to make and keep friends or to sort ordinary things out with neighbours.
• I don’t naturally know the social rules like other people seem to and have to work hard to make sure I don’t break them.

(I also have special interests, anxiety and I feel really uncomfortable if there’s no routine or if I change a routine.)

Hmmm, so, knowing all of this, going to a retreat house where I can quite appropriately choose to be in silence if I want, (although when there are only a few people there I don’t feel the need for that) and where it is very quiet, is the perfect antidote to living in a loud and communication-heavy world for an autistic person.  On top of that because it’s a Christian retreat house it’s like going to stay with extended family and I feel close to what is really important to me.  I will have to try to fit it in later in the year.  There are always memories of our fab holiday on Dartmoor.  It was so beautiful, rugged and wild there – I loved it.

Here are some photo’s.

These first few were taken from the minibus:

The M5 on the way through the West Country.

Arriving on the moor

Dartmoor Ponies

One of the many Tor’s on the moor.

And this was taken with my feet on the ground just the other side of the lane from the place we stayed:

View from where we stayed.

Having had a lovely time to wind-down and ‘chillax’ I’m now more than ready to go with my artistic adventures!

Up next are a couple of line and wash pictures.  These were done before I left.  The first is a picture with waves in it, done as patterns rather than like real waves. The second is a hummingbird.  I spent some time in Illinois and Wisconsin many years ago and was fascinated at the time by the hummingbirds which were fed by many local people.  They were so tiny and flew so differently to other birds.

A New Plan for a New Week

Autism is described as a ‘Spectrum Disorder which means that it has a wide range of severity and a broad mix of related symptoms.  People with severe autism struggle a lot, all the time.  People with milder autism, like me, tend to find that autism is more of a difference than a disability.  Certainly there are some things even people with mild autism like me find difficult.  I find it hard to cope with loud, busy places with lots of people – parties, shopping centres, rush hour on the Underground.  Always I would prefer a library or a museum to any of these things and when I have to go to places like that I get severely stressed for hours and sometimes days.  I cope by carrying earplugs at all times and limiting the time I need to spend in places like that.

I also recognise that I have significant difficulties in conversation and communication.  It’s like an ‘uphill struggle’ to understand simple chit chat and and I find I fail to understand simple things in every conversation I ever have which is difficult because then the choice is either to hide my lack of understanding and guess what to say (which risks getting things wrong to the point of rudness since I am trying to reply to something I don’t understand,) or to admit my failure and explain why I’m struggling which makes me feel ashamed and kind of broken.  This makes communication really tiring and fraut with mistakes.  Yesterday morning, for example, I went to see a doctor for a sinus/throat infection and, after stepping over a yellow ‘wet floor’ sign I got into a misunderstanding with the receptionist.  I tried to sort things out without admitting to my autism but I just made things worse and ended up getting upset which I guess she probably felt uncomfortable about.  So, a little while later, after I’d calmed down I quietly explained the situation to her and apologised.  She was genuinely lovely about it which I really appreaciated, especially since the communication problem was my fault.  Even writing this blog, which mostly I love to do, can be tricky at times because I don’t always know what to say to comments or how to reply, or even if to reply, but at least in this format I get time to think and I can always ask my fabulous son for help.

All of that said, there are a lot of things to do with autism are things which can cause difficulties but can also be strengths.  For instance, I absolutely need to have things planned ahead.  I only feel comfortable when I’ve got a plan and I know where I am on that plan.  It makes things feel less overwhelming and keeps me what they call grounded.  I like that description, ‘grounded’, because when I don’t have a plan and anything can happen, I feel like I might fly away in the wind and I don’t like that feeling.  So the word ‘grounded’ is very apt.

But being a good planner is also a strength because it means I can be regular and consistent about things, I can get down to working on something more easily and I can be reliable and do what others expect of me at the right time.

Anyway  I’ve decided this week to make  a plan for this ‘Adventures in Art’ blog.

My plan is to write an entry here every weekday loosely following a particular art adventure topic each week – perhaps something I’m working on or something I want to learn, or something I’ve seen which I think is brilliant and I want to do some research on.  Then, on Saturaday’s I plan to write an entry on my other blog (which I’ve only recently started).  The new blog is a review site for Science Fiction and Fantasy called “The Non Stop Nerd” where I’ll write a weekly review of a book, comic, game, film or collectable.   This leaves Sunday free for church and rest.

So, this week, I’m going to look quite broadly at drawing animals.

🙂

 (All Images unless otherwise explicitly stated are © Jo Fox, 2015)