Submitted by
Marie Downing
I was one of those kids who was always drawing, always had a pad of paper, and pencil in my hand. In school that was all I wanted to take was art, I excelled in art, and in the last year of high school I discovered graphic arts, and I learned how to run an offset press, photography, darkroom and layout. I continued this education in college, and then started working in print shops, back then “typesetting” was done on the old compugraphs, and layout was done by hand, all images were developed by hand in a darkroom. I have done everything in a print shop from bindery to layout to design when the small “personalized” computers came in, I was hooked!
I have been very fortunate to work for the last 30 years doing something that I loved as a graphic designer. The down side to this was the long hours and demanding production schedules that sapped my creative energy and left me with little or no energy for painting.
Last year I decided to semi-retire and do my graphics from home, which has left me with so much creative energy! Now my time is split between my graphic design, painting and leather work (purses, masks and birdhouses).
Over the years I went from pencil sketching to painting. I had a fantastic art teacher in senior high, who showed us the use of strong shadows and highlights and how to create a strong powerful picture with the use of just one color.
I then discovered India inks, and started with etching style with a nib pen, I tried oils and watercolors and just wasn’t 100 per cent happy with my results I eventually started painting with the inks, probably due to what I had available on hand - and I was hooked! I especially love textures, such as aged leather, wood, metal, as well as strong bold colors, although most of my paintings are done mostly in a sepia or black, with a slight touch of color.
Marie Downing will be the featured artist during October at the Armour Mountain Art Gallery (AMAG), located at 4-4480 Barriere Town Road. AMAG will be featuring a new artist each month in the gallery, with other participating artist’s works filling the walls of Armour Mountain Office Services.