Detlef Jumpertz

After a couple of failed attempts at entering the Waterhouse Prize I've decided to give the 2009 competition a go. The difficulty with this competition is not so much the theme, natural history - which in itself opens up many opportunities, but the somewhat narrow scope (in my opinion) that the judges take. I mean seriously if I were to draw a kangaroo, or some native parrots, or a green tree frog no doubt I'd have much more chance of success. It seems each year's selected entries contains some art work around those subjects.

Hell that orthodoxy isn't my cup of tea, so I'll stubbornly proceed drawing what I want to draw. No wonder my previous entries of a snail and squid respectively didn't hit the mark - or was that they were just shit, anyway artistic integrity and all that jazz etc.

The piece I've settled on drawing is an oarfish versus squid fight to the death. The oarfish sometimes known as the King of Herrings is a bit of a mystery, a long flat ribbon like fish living in the murky depths. Most people would accentuate it's length, by now you would know that I'd do the opposite and squash this bugger up. I decided that if I did this then, I was getting into territory where the addition of another element (squid tentacles and arms) would hopefully produce a maelstrom of appendages.

For something this intricate I like to do several doodles, mainly to get a bearing on composition and shapes on the page. These two doodles where done at work:

I liked the shape and swirl of the former. The latter looks too much like a Chinese dragon style form. The addition of the tentacles in the latter, also gave me enough confidence that with some tweaking the concept would work. To that end, with a bit of freestyling when putting pencil to paper, I came up with a form I'm comfortable with - it has enough happening to keep viewer interest and fill the paper. The mark-up below provides a feel. Just need to fill it in, if it turns out OK then it can be entered - if not then it's only a wasted couple of days.

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