Day Thirty-Eight

9"x12", acrylic & pen on paper / detail view

I started this piece with the ballpoint pens I most like to write with, and I really enjoyed using the stripes to create these weird Dr Seuss kinds of forms.

The pink I added later, and I'm not sure it's appropriate. I'd initially thought to use paint instead of marker because I wanted a more even surface, but I found the acrylic was drying too quickly and becoming clumpy, accumulating layers and surface effects that I hadn't intended for. Then again, there is a nice contrast between the slickness of the pink areas and the cool, smooth black and white forms.


9"x12", acrylic & pen on paper / detail view

This second piece I feel is much less successful than the first. I had a large quantity of pink paint leftover (after sweating every drop, sure I would have to remix on the first piece). I inversed the process on this one, first applying pink forms and then going back in with pen to create stripes.

The stripes function weirdly here, flattening the background with pattern without really elucidating the pink structures or giving any sense of growth or dimension.

Something I'd been thinking about when I started this was the backgrounds of scientific and mathematic diagrams in black and white textbooks, the way that pattern would be used to set off areas, sometimes achieving kind of crazy unintentionally psychedelic effects. This might be something worth pursuing, even though it's a very literal, kind of tongue-in-cheek aspect of my interest in math and science.