Twelve Paperplanes: B E H I N D the A R T: Surfing Blues

I dont pretend I can surf well. Mostly I just say I "surf", when people ask about my life.

My main excuse for not getting any better over the 5 years since I was introduced to the sport is, for one, Mackay (North Queensland, Australia) is not a great place to start off.

Secondly, to make surfing matters worse, I then moved to Townsville (Even further north).

The most "Surf" I've seen happen is two SUP boarders chatting on the glassy water at 7am.

So when I mentioned to my friends that I was surfing for two weeks at Agnes Waters(Great surf spot) and they got all glassy eyed and their mouths formed the shape of an "O". I felt like I betrayed them.

I can't surf. And I really can't surf when I am surrounded by these little lumps of brain, tentacles and I think mouths(?). They terrified me, in a exciting "oh my gosh I'm being followed by a jelly" way. They were cute but there was no way I was touching one. There were hundreds of them trapped in the cove just off the point we were "surfing" off. So when I often flew off waves and saw their bright blue, green bodies bobbing in the water I was about to dive into... the emotions of the experience haunted me.

When it came to thinking of what to draw or illustrate from my trip. These little guys were the only things I could think of.

I am happy with what I came up with. I used ink pens and watercolours to form the original and for the prints I simply turned gradient on in Photoshop. I also love thinking of opposite colours on the colour wheel because it stretches my thinking and it means I put just a little more thought into what I was creating.