My Late Father’s Day Post

It’s that time of the year so we’ve had guests stay over the long weekend and then we traveled over last week so I didn’t get a chance to post much. I did however get an amazing gift for Father’s Day. My wife got me a copy of “All In Line“ an artbook from one of my favorite artists, Mattias Adolfsson! I feel very fortunate to have my spouse’s support as I navigate this part of my journey. The gift also held some additional significance because I feel like it was Mattias’ work that helped me reboot my art journey 3 years ago when I took his class on Domestika. If you’ve never seen his work check out mattiasadolfsson.com, its full of charm and whimsy but hyperdetailed and often busy which makes it very fun to look at. There are certainly aspects of Adolfsson’s wimmelbilder-like work that I feel very influenced by in my own work but he brings a wealth of experience and knowledge that makes his work unique and it has pushed me to look into my own experiences and interests and how it can make my own work more interesting.

The first class I took had a simple goal filling a sketchbook, which sounds easy but can quickly become daunting. I think we’ve all seen the “This got me into CalArts Sketchbooks“ posts where every page looks like a finished study or brand cohesive work and left you feeling a certain way. At the end of the course, I really didn’t have that, and that wasn’t the point. What I did have was a book filled with my progress and growing confidence. I started to branch out more with different mediums, started using color, more abstraction, perspective, humor, storytelling and much more and its cool to be able to pick it up years later and see it all happen.

So I started another sketchbook, the first in a good while; I plan on filling this book during the the rest of the year. My digital work has really taken more of my time recently so I like having the traditional process as well, it scratches a different art itch.