The Lemont Artists Guild is pleased to present, via Zoom, illustration artist Mark A. Nelson who will talk about his life in the field of Illustration and Comics and he will demonstrate sketching, drawing, and inking. A lot of his artwork leans on the fantastic side, in which he enjoys designing new worlds and new creatures and telling stories with his art. Mark holds a Masters in Fine Art in Printmaking (1978) from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) and a Bachelors in Fine Art in Drawing (1976) from the Cleveland Institute of Art (Cleveland, OH). He loves printmaking and says that his experience in lithography, etchings, and wood engravings has helped him in his career define how he uses strokes and marks in his drawings and inks of his comics and illustrations.
Throughout his career, Mark has held many hats in the illustration, comic book and video game industry including also being a Professor of Art from Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL). After he retired from N.I.U. he worked for Raven Software (Madison, WI) as a Senior Artist and some of his responsibilities included concept drawings of characters, world scenes, perspective drawings of environments, painting character skins and their variations and models of machines and world objects. He went on to be the Lead Teacher in the Animation Department at Madison Area Technical College and then moved to Texas to work for Pi Studios as their Art Director/Lead Concept Artist.
During his career Mark has also undertook many other projects collaborating with authors and other artists including the following: Fantasy World Building (Dover Publications), Innsmouth-The Lost Drawings of Mannish Sycovia (Alaxis Press), Blood and Shadows-four issue mini-series (DC Comics), Feud-four issue mini-series (commissioned by Epic Comics [Marvel]), Nightbreed and Hellraiser-various stories and comics for Marvel, Aliens (Dark Horse Comics) #1-6 with 24 pages of artwork, pencils and inks. He has been an Inker on various projects at Marvel, DC Comics, First, Just Imagine Comics, and Eclipse Comics, and worked on comics for Tonka Toys: Rock Lords and Steel Monsters.
Mark has been a Juror for Spectrum 20: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art and also has qualified to have his artwork printed in various years of Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. He also was in two different exhibitions for the Best of Spectrum show at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. Other accolades for Mark include from Pencils to Inks, a monthly article on drawing comics 24 chapters, (Hero Magazine), Aphrodisia, the Art of the Female Form (#1 won Gold Fine Art Award and #2 cover), covers and interior art for Dungeons and Dragons Magazine, covers for books and interior art with Cemetery Dance Publications and Subterranean Press, Wizards of the Coast, World of Warcraft, Three Rings Publications game cards, TSR and Wizards of the Coast game module, monster and creature design, and book interior art, and his own created books: From Pencils to Inks and Visual Dialogues. He has had various exhibitions of his artwork both in solo and group exhibitions. You can view his website at https://www.grazingdinosaurpress.com/
Meetings are open to all; you do not have to be a LAG member or a Homer Library patron to attend.
For more information on the Lemont Artists Guild, click here.
Registration closes at 7pm on February 9, 2022.
