When I was in graduate school there were whole classes devoted to experimentation. Over the past 11 years, however, I have sometimes viewed experimentation as a waste of time, preferring a model of production over a model of improvement. To be sure, I’ve spent a good deal of time attempting to get better with my medium, but I think that over the course of the years I found my self rather pigeon holed. My website name is Lewis Acrylics and while I still use acrylics almost every day, not all of the artwork that I make is acrylic. In fact, even the pieces that make use of acrylic paint often bear Bic pen marks as well, making my work not acrylic in nature but mixed media.
I have also not been a fan of moleskine sketchbooks for some time. The paper is so thin and the hype so oppressive, but a few people whose images I’ve seen online make me a little bit more excited about them. One of these artists is Mattias Adolfsson. He makes me want to draw all of the time. With some of his work in mind I started putting together some sketches of boomboxes and cassettes and later some abstractions of the two.
These were four contour drawings of cassettes which I put together while my class was drawing cross contours of their hands. I drew them over top of some other random sketches so I’m not sure how well the information is translated.
These boomboxes were more as research than anything else. I wasn’t that pleased with the quality of the drawings from the get go. However as I was sketching boomboxes it occurred to me that I was interested in the shapes within the boombox and how they might break down, which led to this series of drawings.
I felt very much influenced by Wassily Kandinsky later Supremacist pieces. The color is very much meant to be viewed in the same manner and the shapes are much the same as well.
It feels odd to be working in watercolors. I keep fearing that I am using them incorrectly. I layer my color with them a bit more than I remember being taught in school. I do, however, like laying compliments and near compliments over top of each other. I think it gives a particularly vibrant pop to the shapes. I am surprised at how good it feels to be experimenting. I don’t feel as though these pieces are particularly precious which helps me make some more rash and spontaneous color and shape decisions. Perhaps I finally understand what my professors were getting at.
Peace
-Mike