Drawing with Fire

Artist Steven Spazuk began his career as many artists do, a gradual transition from sketching and drawing to watercolor and acrylic painting. In the 1980s he began using an airbrush and found himself fascinated by the smooth gradients created by the finely sprayed paint. Then, in 2001 an idea struck: what would happen if he exposed a canvas to fire and controlled the imprint of soot left on the surface? Spazuk has hardly left the medium since.
Though he creates many smaller pieces that look like smokey gesture drawings, I really enjoy his wall-sized fragmentation paintings made from hundreds of smaller works, each the result of a canvas exposed to fire and then gently etched to reveal finers details. Watch the video to see how he does it.