Playing With Materials, Making Some Art

I have been making relief sculptures for the past couple years, mostly in a diorama-esque way, using boxes and building up the inside with hardware store materials and, of course, some bits.

I've expanded out and stated building on top of more traditional canvas/flat pieces of wood about a year ago and it's been much less finicky.

I've been doing install on a tub and shower set-up lately, so I have a bunch of thinset that will be used to adhere the tiles to the walls. The material is cool, spreads and moves around like a combo of spackle and cement. 

I made a small work to text the capabilities, and also used some on the bases of some Riders of Rohan that I'll share soon.

I decided to go with a simple monotone color scheme for this because I always put too much visually into these sculptures. There's usually a lot of different color and I tend to overwork the piece. So I primed this off white, and hit it with some dark washes and called it a day.

Happy with the result, it was easier to paint than my artworks usually are, but the end result is more cohesive.

I've been looking at the work of Edward Kienholz and Russell Mills lately so I borrowed their palette for the work.

Russel Mills Wound, 1994

Edward Kienholz Drawing for the Hoerengracht No. 1, 1984

I'm going to keep exploring this and make some future posts about discoveries as I get ready for a show in the Spring with my wife.

Hope you like - PCE!