Paul Alexander Thornton – Artist & Pattern Designer

Paul Alexander’s statement with EIL:

Clever 21st century artists realize that Youtube is the world’s most accessible gallery. Paul Alexander Thorton, a self-taught artist and musician from the UK has done just that. His youtube videos detail the process behind his intricate, accomplished, and strangely dark drawings and paintings with his own music to accompany them. We asked why Thorton documents his process and he explained:

I find the process so interesting, maybe even more interesting than the drawing itself. When I look at a piece of art I like to look at how it was made and imagine what the artist was thinking as they made the work. My drawings are process-centric and the videos I make are my way of sharing those processes with you. I normally set up the camera on a tripod next to my drawing board, start recording and just draw as I normally would trying to forget the camera. I’ve used combinations of time-lapse, stop-motion, sped-up footage and some real-time stuff too, at the moment sped-up footage is my preferred method.

Thorton’s art has three particular obsessions: skulls, flowers, and ball point pen. He continues discussing:

…I’ve never had much money, time, space or even a bedroom. So, I found ballpoint pens to be the most practical medium choice. After always doodling wherever I went I got really good at shading and detailing with the pens. Later on when I got some space to draw and a chance to work big I thought why not just expand on what I’m already doing and see how it comes out. It was a natural thing. As for skulls and flowers, I’m an obsessive artist. I find one thing and obsess over it, repeat it, elaborate on it and expand it. Once I’ve pushed it as far as it can go then I move on. My portfolio tells that story as I find one thing and push it so far and then leave it behind, you can see I did portraits and then stopped and started up drawing abstract patterns, pushed it so far then moved onto flowers, then skulls. I’ll know its time to move on when I become bored.

Paul Alexander Thornton’s Website

Nick Martin is a writer from Urbana, Illinois. His primary interests are pop-culture criticism,  graphic novels and comicbooks, contemporary fiction, and 20th century history/philosophy. When he’s not writing, Nick likes to trim his mustache and tell jokes.