黑熊

Playing around with purple - a colour I generally avoid. My friend told me that black bear in Mandarin is pronounced similarly to, "hey Sean", preetttyyy wiiiiillldddd!

Of A Kind Show

For those in Toronto, I have some old and new paintings for sale and on the walls at Of A Kind Vintage and Vinyl store! There's going to be a party for it on the 28th of February and it would be rad to see you there! The work is already up and will continue to be so after the event as well if you can't make it that night.

If you continue after the jump you'll see the work that's up and their price so if you have an interest but are unable to attend you can make some inquiries. To those interested in purchasing prints, do not hesitate to send me an email at seanislewis at gmail.com about what specific piece you're interested in! A new website is almost complete and soon all this information will be readily accessible there. Thanks for the interest and patience!

Norwegian Wood

Painted this fake book cover of Norwegian Wood by Murakami for my friend who is far off in Japan

An Unfinished Work

I've been working on this the past month and I think it's the largest personal piece I've done so far. The wood had a coating on it that made the paint react in a way I wasn't used to. It made blending a little smoother but it also gave the paint a more translucent quality that I found really frustrating.

This is a scene depicting my conflicted mentality with painting. In trying to encapsulate the beauty of the natural world I'm actively destroying it with all the toxic substances, chemical processing and shipping of art supplies painting requires. I feel really guilty about that.

Popguru

This is a poster I just completed for Popguru’s 15 anniversary concert. First digital piece I’ve done in a long time and it was a fun experiment, especially playing around with the type. 

Father John Misty

Here's a little portrait I painted of Father John Misty for my sister this Christmas. His album Fear Fun is pretty fantastic if you haven't checked it out!

Wilderness of Manitoba tour poster

Show poster I drew a little while back.

The Pug Emperor

This guy was a much bigger undertaking than I was expecting! "Oh I'll just paint a silly picture of a Chinese emperor and his harem of pugs, it'll be fun!" Between all the colour changes, the patterns, the background, THE PUGS! It started to drive me a little crazy. Still can't decide if I've finished. Here it is for now!

Don't Wake Daddy VII: Apocalypse How

This is a painting I did for a show taking place in Hamburg, Germany! The show is curated by Heiko Muller, who I've been a huge fan of for quite some time now. It's also featuring tons of amazing artists and I'm honored to be included.

Opening: December 1, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

December 1 - 22, 2012

Feinkunst Krüger
Kohlhöfen 8
20355 Hamburg
Germany

Telefon: +49-(0)40-31792158

Participating artists:
Atak, Anthony Ausgang, Oksana Badrak, Dan Barry, Jana Brike, Chris Buzelli, Daniel Cantrell, John Casey, Belicta Castelbarco, Paul Chatem, Brendan Danielsson, Danielle de Picciotto, Justin DeGarmo, Alex Diamond, Mark Elliott, Elmar Lause , Sebastian Feld, Charles Glaubitz, Kelly Haigh, Thorsten Hasenkamm, Gregory Hergert, Ryan Heshka, Natalie Huth, Charlie Immer, Gragory Jacobsen, Colin Johnson, Boje Arndt Kiesiel, Ti Kunkit, Sean Lewis, Carolin Löbbert, Jon MacNair, Mia Mäkilä, Moki, Brendan Monroe, Sergio Mora, Chris Mostyn, Heiko Müller, Skot Olsen, Anthony Pontius, Wolfgang Sangmeister, Raudiel Sanudo, Marcus Schäfer, Kim Scott, Michael Slack, Allison Sommers, Nathan Spoor, Fred Stonehouse, Collin van der Sluijs, Christian Rex van Minnen, Marco Wagner, Eric White

Wilderness of Manitoba - Island of Echoes

Front Cover

Back Cover

Inner Sleeve

Inner Sleeve

Template Layout

Delaware House EP Cover

The past year has been very unproductive on the art making front unfortunately. I had the opportunity to do a lot of road tripping and meet lots of fantastic people so I wouldn't call it wasted time by any means but I hope to get back into this more. While working as a counselling supervisor this summer (when only have one week counselling experience in my life previously o_o) I had the great fortune of working with my good friends The Wilderness of Manitoba for their upcoming record Island of Echoes. It was pretty interesting balancing these jobs but I'm so pleased it all worked out and had this opportunity. It's a fantastic album and a huge leap in sound comparatively to their previous work so needless to say I'm psyched about this! It was a lovely challenge to represent the expansiveness of the record and hopefully I did it justice.
A few notes on the images above:
The two paintings were toss ups for which would end up being the cover. In the end we decided on the summer scene because it represented a side to the band that hadn't really been expressed visually before and also spoke for the great summery tunes throughout the album.
The second painting is the back cover and partially channels a nightmare that Will told me about set at Elk Island. This was a really tricky painting to pull off, it was very hard for whatever reason to get two separate colour schemes to work together but also remain distinct from one another. The outer winter scene is also comprised of colours outside of my comfort zone so there was a lot of second guessing and over painting.
The inner sleeves, disc art and Delaware House EP cover are all drawings from my sketchbook that I coloured and edited within photoshop. The type was also all hand drawn and arranged with photoshop as well!
Excited to share this, the record is out September 18th!

Flowers In Her Hair

I've been in school without breaks since Kindergarden and living my life for the first time without it has allowed me to realize a few things about myself. Namely that I am not a productive person. I need a deadline or a reason to make something and I get very little satisfaction out of producing something solely for myself. Instilling passion and drive into your everyday life is a noble pursuit and I think with time and maturation I'll hopefully get there. So if you have a project in mind and think I'd be a good fit, feel free to contact me, I'd love to hear it!

That being said I haven't totally been sitting on my bum. I've done a few drawings for friends, recently designed a friends record, I'm in the midst of painting and designing another friends record, had an old painting that I spent a long time touching up in a show (above), making and designing mixes for friends (above) and just spending a lot of time with my great friends who I'd probably go crazy without.

The future hopefully holds a collaborative project I'm really excited about. A road trip through the good ol' USA, and fingers crossed, teaching english in Japan starting in the summer.

I hope everyone who drops by here occasionally is doing well and is finding satisfaction in whatever pursuit they're after. It's hard and confusing figuring out what you really want out of life and I'm really struggling with that at the moment. I think that you end up learning a lot about yourself though, and end up having much more to say and offer other people. All the best everyone!

Somewhere On Your Stolen Bike

This is a painting I did in the spring for the Romance of the Wheel show.