On My Easel...

New Seascapes in 2024

  • Continuing with my study of light and atmosphere, I’m planning to incorporate seasonal light into my paintings this year, with a special focus on larger seascape paintings.   
  • This winter, I immersed myself in times of rest, hibernation, and rejuvenation. Recharging creatively. Waking up from hibernation and leaning into a place of comfort to recharge my sense of creative energy. For me, creating from a place of comfort means returning to my favorite limited palette of phthalo blue, burnt umber, and titanium white, mixed to create rich gray tones containing hints of blues and earthy browns. With my New England winter as my muse, the result is a small new collection of five atmospheric moody seascapes, textured with palette knife markings to create a wintry sea and sky.
  • In the spring, my goal is to interpret the moment that light first appears over the ocean after a storm. This work is currently in progress, and I'm looking forward to sharing these paintings with you in the coming weeks.
  • All new seascapes will be added to my Seascapes webpage, and will be available in my online shop.

MarshLands series

  • I have a life-long fascination with marshes, swamps, and roadside muck! These environmentally important ecosystems offer up an array of textures and colors that change from one season to the next, but also change hour by hour in the case of coastal marshes.
  • When the sun rises, the marsh awakens. I am interested in figuring out ways to interpret the interaction of sunlight with the elements of water, grass, and muck of the marshes. 
  • I use my oil paints, brushes, and knives to tell the stories of that light, and to interpret the light in a way that captures how I felt when I observed it. To accomplish this, I begin by toning my surface with a color that will glow throughout the painting, creating a particular feeling or mood. For example, I often tone my surfaces orange or red to bring an overall feeling of warmth to the finished painting. I apply many subsequent layers of paint, starting with soft, faint brush strokes on the early layers as the composition takes shape from a scene in my imagination or memory. Then I slowly build up textures of paint with my brushes and palette knives.
  • Throughout my process, I continue asking myself what the light is making me feel, making sure I’m getting the story right. I hope the stories I’m telling about light will resonate and connect with others who might have experienced a similar feeling, and serve as a reminder that the light gives life, feeling, and connection to everything and everyone it touches.
  • I have created a webpage for the Marshlands Series. I also send out occasional announcements to my newsletter subscribers (subscribe below) and post regular updates on my social media pages if you're interested in following along.

snapshots series

  • My Snapshots Series of tiny oil paintings on Arches oil paper is an ongoing series that I originally started as a way to break a creative block. In this series, I experiment with different color and texture combinations. Formatted to resemble old-school instant photos, these tiny paintings aren’t meant to be perfect compositions, but represent “in-the-moment” ideas that are forming as I work: Snapshots!
  • As I work on new ideas, I find my self painting more and more Snapshots. I hang them up in my studio, and these tiny paintings work their magic, sparking ideas for new artwork. 
  • I'm happy to add them to my online Shop from time to time as a way to share my art process with collectors. Each Snapshot measures approx. 4.25” x 3.5” and is signed on the back.
  • Subscribe to my newsletter and follow my social media to find out when new Snapshots are available.
Photo of four original tiny seascape oil paintings by Tisha Mark, Snapshots Series, Nos. 34-37, oil on paper (2023), shown here hanging from tiny clothespins on a line of twine. Paintings are formatted to resemble old-school instant photos.
Photo of a law dictionary open to a page with a charcoal landscape sketch in the middle of the page. Printed words on the page are partially visible beneath a thin layer of gesso and the charcoal sketch. A hand holds the page open. On the windowsill at the top of the photo is a cup of coffee, a piece of charcoal, an eraser, and a paper towel smudged with charcoal.

law dictionary project

  • In 2019, I started transforming my Black’s Law Dictionary into a work of art. Symbolic of my journey from lawyer to artist, my law dictionary has become my most important place for recording my interpretations, memories, and feelings from the environment around me. Whether it is an impression left by a particular day at the beach, or a tree that looked particularly interesting after a fresh snowfall, I pour those moments onto these pages.  
  • I begin each page with a thin base coat of gesso, then I use charcoal to sketch the images.
  • The original physical drawings remain bound in my law dictionary as one cohesive, ever-evolving collection. 
  • If you're interested in following along, I post each drawing on an Instagram page specific for this project, and also frequently share them on my Mastodon page.