Mark Hewatt

Author: Mark Hewatt

  • Falling

    Falling

    This piece steps into a quiet suburban street during peak autumn, using familiar neighborhood architecture to explore an underlying narrative of melancholy, solitude, and narrative tension.

    The foreground is dominated by two massive, ancient trees framing a small lawn, where a solitary, semi-translucent figure sits slumped on a bench. Across the street, suburban life sits suspended in transition: a car parked by the curb beside cardboard boxes, and neighboring houses with their windows glowing warm against the cool encroaching evening. Are we witnessing someone waiting to leave, an eviction, a quiet reckoning with loss, or the ghostly memory of someone who once lived here watching new lives unfold? Leaving the circumstance ambiguous invites the viewer to fill the silence between the bench and the curb.

    Technically, the drawing was executed on watercolor paper using acrylics, India ink, and gel pens. The dense autumn canopy was built using intense, saturated acrylic washes layered with intricate pointillist dot work to create a shimmering, textured carpet of gold, copper, and vermilion. India ink linework defines the muscular bark, sprawling root systems, and architectural siding. Gel pens were brought in to lay down crisp, opaque highlights and subtle color shifts across the tree bark, the pavement, and the solitary figure, giving them a luminous, spectral presence amidst the burning fall foliage.

    • Falling - distance
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  • The Morning Mug

    The Morning Mug

    This piece completes my mini-trio of coffee-themed reduction linocuts. After focusing on the preparation tools—the moka pot and hand grinder—this final print lands on the ritual itself: the first steaming cup of the day.

    The palette pivots into bright, expressive color. A bold field of dusty lavender surrounds the mug, framed with warm golden-yellow accents and crisp teal-blue contour lines. Carving out the body of the mug allows the clean white of the paper to hold the center, letting the stylized sun emblem and curling steam stand out in sharp relief.

    Technically, this print balances fluid gouge work with flat color registration. The expressive chatter marks cutting through the lavender background add movement, mimicking ambient morning light and steam drifting across the counter. Working through this three-print series served as an ideal playground for re-establishing block-carving muscle memory, testing color traps, and dialing in ink pressure.

  • A Hand Grinder in Five Passes

    A Hand Grinder in Five Passes

    Continuing the ongoing “Coffee” series, this piece shifts focus to an antique-style hand coffee grinder. Following the earlier studies, this was executed as a 5-color reduction print, peeling away layers of the design sequentially from the same block.

    Reduction printing always brings a healthy dose of discipline to the studio table. Because the block is progressively destroyed with each color pass, there is no backtracking—every cut has to be planned around the sequence of values. The print balances warm ochre and chestnut wood tones for the box, bold red accents on the drawer knob and crank handle, a solid black structural outline for the cast hopper and arm, and a cool, muted mint background.

    Technically, this was carved into a Speedball Speedy-Carve block and printed on Strathmore heavyweight printmaking paper using Speedball water-based inks. The pink rubber block cuts smoothly, allowing for fluid curved lines on the crank and hopper while still holding crisp architectural edges on the box. The water-based ink lays down with a velvety, slightly broken texture on the heavy paper, giving the final pull an honest, hand-crafted feel.

  • Flight Along the Hillside

    Flight Along the Hillside

    This graphite piece pushes the themes of isolation and the unknown into an active, high-tension narrative. Moving away from the static, contemplative vigils of the earlier drawings, here we see a lone figure running directly toward the viewer through a dense, textured field.

    The friction in the scene stems from what lingers just behind. Framed by bare, sprawling trees in the midground and the hazy canopy of the woods beyond, subtle marks in the graphite suggest additional figures watching or giving chase. Are they pursuers, ancient presences emerging from the tree line, or mere tricks of light in the overgrowth? Leaving those forms as vague impressions lets the viewer feel the urgency of the moment without spelling out the conclusion.

    Technically, the drawing was completed on Strathmore heavyweight paper using Staedtler graphite pencils. Staedtler lead offers crisp, controllable gradations that work exceptionally well across a textured ground. I used light, soft shading to establish the misty depth of the woods, while applying sharper, darker strokes to build the chaotic rhythm of the field and the sharp silhouette of the fleeing figure.

    • Flight Along the Hillside - Distance
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  • Quiet Boundary

    Quiet Boundary

    This graphite piece builds on my continued exploration of solitude, memory, and quiet intervals in rural spaces. The composition follows a rhythmic line of rolled hay bales resting along a fence row beneath bare, sprawling trees. Perched atop one of the bales sits the subtle impression of a solitary figure, gazing out over the pasture in a private moment of pause.

    Graphite lends itself naturally to this kind of atmospheric work, allowing me to build a hazy, soft-focus impression where subtle marks and soft shading do the storytelling rather than rigid, hard lines.

    Technically, the drawing was completed on Strathmore heavyweight paper using Mitsubishi graphite pencils. The paper’s substantial tooth provides an ideal textured ground for dry media, catching the graphite to create a natural, grainy softness across the background and grass while allowing the darker Mitsubishi lead to lay down dense, rich contrast in the swirling texture of the bales and the tree branches.

    • Quiet Boundary - Distance
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  • Solitary Traverse

    Solitary Traverse

    This graphite drawing steps back into a quiet, atmospheric space, continuing my exploration of solitude, loss, and the unknown. At first glance, the composition presents a familiar rural vista: a weathered fence line tracing the curve of a hill, distant hay bales resting in the pasture, and a small cluster of bare trees leaning against the sky.

    Looking closer between the trunks reveals a faint, subtly shaded figure walking along the boundary. That quiet presence shifts the entire mood of the scene, turning a simple field study into a contemplative moment of transition. Is it a wanderer passing through, or an echo tied to these quiet acres? Leaving that narrative open allows the viewer to project their own sense of memory and stillness into the frame.

    Technically, the piece was completed on Strathmore heavyweight mixed media paper using Winsor & Newton medium graphite pencils. The pencils were a blind buy, but their soft, creamy graphite application laid down rich, dark values on the textured surface. The natural tooth of the heavyweight paper grabs the medium cleanly, creating a soft, stippled grain in the grass and sky while letting the darker graphite build dense, tactile fissures along the tree bark.

    • Solitary Traverse - Distance
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  • Bound Sentry

    Bound Sentry

    This piece continues my exploration of folklore and the eerie quiet of deep woodland spaces. The composition centers on a massive, ancient tree whose trunk and sprawling root system dominate the foreground, breaking the forest floor like petrified muscle.

    Flanking the base of the roots are two hooded figures cloaked in deep ochre, standing motionless before the hollows of the trunk. High in the branches, the crimson ribbon appears once again, bound around the limbs—a subtle, recurring marker that weaves through this series, hinting at an unseen presence or a quiet rite known only to those who wander these woods.

    Technically, this was completed on Strathmore heavyweight mixed media paper using Faber-Castell Pitt pens and Staedtler fine liners, with subtle pointillism applied via acrylic pens. I used the fine liners to construct the heavy, modular texture of the bark, mapping out dense, individual fissures across the trunk. Pitt pen washes established the cool blue-gray tones of the wood and the glowing yellow light filtering through the background trees. To bring extra vibration to the canopy and ground plane, I layered fine acrylic dots over the ink work, giving the ambient light an electric, atmospheric tooth.

    • Bound Sentry - Distance
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  • Swamp Fugue

    Swamp Fugue

    Continuing my focus on folklore and eldritch horror within deep forest environments, this piece moves into a dense, swampy green fugue. The scene is framed by heavy, twisted trunks—ancient, highly textured sentinels that act as a visual boundary looking out toward a distant clearing.

    Deep in the mist, a lit shack casts a warm, unsettling glow against the cool pale sky, drawing subtle, hooded figures through the woods toward whatever gathering awaits. Suspended in the midground, bound tightly around the branches of a gnarled tree, is a stark crimson ribbon. It is a deliberate, unnatural mark cutting through the wild green overgrowth. Whether it serves as a boundary, a remnant of some forgotten ritual, or a subtle signifier of the strange, ancient presences that drift through these woods, its true purpose is left unsaid.

    Technically, Swamp Fugue was worked on cold press paper using a combination of Faber-Castell Pitt pens, Staedtler fine liners, and Staedtler pigment pens. I used the fine liners to build the dense, organic contour lines that give the bark its heavy, ridged texture, while layering Pitt pen washes to establish the murky, moss-toned atmosphere. The fine stippling in the upper canopy allows the pale mist to hum with static, balancing the sharp, linear detail of the grass and foreground roots.

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  • Amber Shadows

    Amber Shadows

    In this latest piece, I wanted to step away from the cooler, muted tones of the deep woods and test what happens when you push a landscape into high-vibrancy territory. The goal was to capture an impression of folklore—that feeling of stepping into a stretch of woods where the light behaves strangely and the trees carry an ancient, deliberate presence. Across these recent folklore experiments, a common thread has begun to emerge: the quiet, mysterious presence of distant figures going about some unknown, ancient task just beyond the foreground.

    Technically, this was built on cold press paper using a multi-layered approach with Faber-Castell Pitt pens, Sakura fine liners, and bullet-tip acrylic pens.

    The process relied on layering different styles of mark-making to establish depth and tactile friction. I used tight ink strokes and heavy cross-hatching with the fine liners to map out the complex, muscular bark and gnarled root structure of the central trunk. The rich, vibrant color fields throughout the piece were applied directly with Pitt pens. To create the vibrating, atmospheric background, I layered fine, precise dots of pointillist texture over those washes using bullet-tip acrylic pens. The tooth of the cold press paper catches those opaque micro-dots, allowing the canopy to hum with an electric, golden light.

    It’s an exercise in narrative and structural contrast—letting the rigid precision of ink linework clash against the soft, vibrating texture of a pointillist sky while hinting at a world moving quietly in the shadows.

    • Amber Shadows - Distance
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  • Reduction Study No. 2: French Press

    Reduction Study No. 2: French Press

    Continuing with my deep dive into re-learning reduction linocut printing, this new piece takes the coffee theme a step further. While the earlier moka pot study was a great warm-up in carving and basic registration, this French press piece pushed into much more complex territory as a 6-color reduction print.

    Reduction printing is an unforgiving process because there’s no turning back—once you carve away a layer of linoleum for the next color pass, that previous stage is gone forever. Managing six distinct color passes meant planning out the light blues, warm terracottas, rich coffee tones, jade background, and heavy dark outlines in strict sequence.

    Working through six passes also means wrestling with registration precision and ink trap behavior on the block. Small variations in pressure or carving depth show up immediately, but that physical unpredictability is exactly what makes relief printmaking so rewarding. The slight chatter marks left in the background and the overlap of heavy ink layers create a graphic, tactile punch that you simply can’t replicate with a pen or digital tool.

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