Featured Artist Shana Bowes

Artist Shana Bowes captures scenes of Americana through intricate drawings using graphite as her medium. See more by visiting her website.

 

 

I’m a self-taught artist that has always enjoyed drawing with pencils.

 

 

I love the impact of black and white art, along with the control that I can get from using a pencil to create my realism drawings on Bristol vellum paper. My pencil captures the small architectural elements and reflections that often go overlooked.

 

 

I grew up in a small Southern town and moved to New York City after college. I worked in real estate and community development for over twenty years, and developed a fascination of how cities and suburbs can completely change.

 

 

Main Streets and city blocks go from being run down and boarded up to becoming thriving cities with shiny glass towers in less than a decade. While I love nostalgia and old memories of vintage signage and stores, I appreciate modern architecture and the glass of the new buildings.

 

 

I take a lot of road trips on back roads to find the old, and then spend the night in bustling cities to find the new. Working in black and white reminds me of old photos, when times were simpler. I enjoy reading about the history of each place I draw.

 

 

I take and use all my own photos, which includes various angles and times of day. I then crop out the design I like. On the modern ones, I try to get an angle that may take you a minute to figure out which part of the building it is.

 

 

The nostalgia drawings are mostly memories from my childhood which includes Coca Cola, Krispy Kreme, and old Drugstores on Main Street. The modern drawings are inspired by my time living in New York City when I was enamored with the skyscrapers.

 

 

So many times, people just drive by old buildings or don’t look up to notice the glass towers. I hope I inspire you to appreciate the built environment wherever you may be.

 

Shana Bowes invites you to follow on Instagram and Facebook.

 

 

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