Octopus Vs The Harris, upcycled vintage painting

"Octopus Vs The Harris”

My “Octopus Vs Ship” series explores the idea that if octopus were enormous, they would have so much fun playing with passing ships! This beautiful octopus is based on the Giant Pacific Octopus which has 280 suction cups on EACH arm! And each suction cup is individually controlled, and can touch, smell and taste! That’s like having over 2000 finger-nose-tongues… amazing and disgusting! 

This painting was a turning point for my octopus paintings, as with it being so large, I could really delve into studying the skin and textures of the octopus to make it more realistic. 

Restoration : This artwork was a little dirty… so much so that I couldn’t see the signature until I had given it a clean. There was also a fine rip developing, so I patched that. The frame had been painting a cream colour, so I gave it a coat of matte white paint to freshen it up a bit. 

The original vintage painting by E. Harris was collected from @theemporiumbuyandsell in Burk’s Falls, Ontario. The original artist, Edwin Harris, was born in England and emigrated to Canada about 1906. Harris lived in Toronto till he passed about 1980. He was a hobby artist and copied other paintings. He was quite prolific, painting ships, cavaliers, flower still life, birds. He sold his paintings to friends and people he worked with at Bell Canada.

mixed media on vintage painting
76 x 50 cm (91 x 64 cm vintage frame)

Artist’s collection : This painting is one of my favourites and is in my own collection. Sometimes I let pieces from my collection go... if you are interested in this piece please get in touch. Prints and digital downloads are available.