Mark Hewatt

Tag: art

The Reader and the Statue
I’m sharing a new piece today, built from a reference photo I took on a cool spring afternoon at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens in Athens.

Walking through the grounds, I was immediately drawn to the relationship between these two figures—a man reading on a bench and a nearby sculpture. I loved the accidental, imitative gestures; both the living man and the stone figure seemed equally invested in their quiet activities. The contrast between the fleeting stillness of the reader and the permanent stillness of the stone was a dynamic I wanted to capture on paper.

For this piece, I wanted the technique to reflect the atmosphere of that afternoon. Instead of rigid, heavy linework, I relied on quick dashes and the natural, expressive tendency of India ink. My goal was to give the illustration a whimsical and impressionistic sensation, capturing the feeling of the garden rather than just mapping out its exact details.

To balance that loose, kinetic energy, I brought in acrylic ink very sparingly. It was used just to provide some opaque grounding in a few sparse locations across the piece, anchoring the expressive ink lines and giving the composition a bit of weight.

It’s a quick study of a quiet moment—where life and art happened to be doing the exact same thing.

Technical Details:
- 9×12 140lb cold press
- Faber-Castell Pitt pens
- Shuttle Art paint pens
- Staedtler Pigment Liner
April 27, 2026
Snow Day in North Georgia
I’m sharing another new piece today, this one capturing a completely different kind of stillness. Based on a cold, snowy day up in North Georgia, it depicts a few figures standing right in the middle of an iced-over road.

There is a very specific kind of quiet that happens when it snows heavily around here—the cars stop, the world slows down, and suddenly the middle of the street becomes a place to just stand and take it all in. I wanted to capture that rare, communal pause.

To get the atmosphere right, I used the same technique as my recent Botanical Gardens piece. I relied on the expressive, fast nature of India ink, using quick dashes rather than rigid lines. This approach gives the illustration a whimsical, impressionistic sensation that mimics the raw, biting energy of a freezing winter afternoon. The scratchy ink work was perfect for mapping out the bare, shivering trees and the heavy tire tracks carved into the ice.

Just like the last piece, I used acrylic ink very sparingly to provide some opaque grounding. The bright hits of color on the winter coats and the deep, rusty reds in the background tree line help anchor the composition, allowing the white of the cold press paper to do the heavy lifting for the snow.

It’s a quick snapshot of a rare winter moment, frozen in ink.

Technical Details:
- 9×12 140lb cold press
- Faber-Castell Pitt pens
- Shuttle Art paint pens
- Staedtler Pigment Liner
April 27, 2026

Tag: art

The Reader and the Statue

Snow Day in North Georgia