When Sharpie advocate Mark Rivard gets tired of illustrating skateboards he gets a little crazy (A GOOD CRAZY!). His new painting takes “Sharpie Art” to a whole new level. Mark shared his process with us and the resulting painting spawned an entire new series from Rivard. Rivard took some time to share with us a little more about what drives his creative process and how he’s evolving from his skateboard roots…
I was sitting around the studio one day just waiting for an idea to hit and I noticed my trash was overflowing. I had a number of empty cans just waiting for somebody to clean them up and instead of doing just that, I piled them onto a canvas and starting dripping layer after layer of paint over them. (Inspiration really can strike anywhere…)
After a few weeks of layering paint the result was really interesting to me. You had to really look closely to see what the object was under the paint. It had a very Jackson Pollock style and lose feel that I was very attracted to and I wanted to explore further. I started doing other objects like cassette tapes, old cell phones, wine corks, and even a pair of stilettos.
I was really enjoying the concept and seeing a series developing. I’ve started to do some of these paintings with product and branding in mind as well. I looked at companies that are using artist as tools to promote their product, then looked at the color and shape of the actual product and created an interesting mix of product and fine art. It didn’t take long for me notice the extremely large stock of Sharpie’s lying around my studio and the second the idea hit, I was off and running. For this particular piece there are about 30 or so Sharpies under, roughly, 50 layers of diluted acrylic.
The interesting thing is this painting is still changing and evolving long after I put the final signature on it. The ink from the sharpies took on a life of it’s own and began to release from the pens which created a really unique affect.
That’s my favorite thing about art, when you open your mind up all of the sudden art is everywhere. A pen isn’t just a writing tool in the right hands, it’s a possibility!
It used to be difficult to get your art work out for the world to see. Art galleries, art shows or maybe the occasional print article was an artist’s best chance at gaining a following. The digital world and social media has changed all that. Today’s featured Sharpie artist shows us how.
Expressing her feelings through the intricate details of her work, she never sets out to draw something specific, it is common for her work to become mesmerizing and for different creatures to appear as her drawings advance. The thick, bold, expressive lines of her art are amazingly done with simply the classic 
How did you get started using Sharpie Markers: I have always loved drawing with Sharpie markers. I have tried every marker out there and Sharpie is the best because it has the crispest line and one marker will last me an entire drawing.
If there was one place your art could take you, where would it be: I think it would be really fun to own my own product line with my designs that businesses could use on their products (for example surf, skate, snow shops) as well as on like t-shirts, skateboards, shoes, really anything you could put a design on.
