Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Dye.
Hi Mark, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m an artist and writer who’s spent his whole life in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area. The Art By Mark(er) style started with me drawing mazes as far back as elementary school. I realized I could hide friends’ names inside the detailing, and that slowly developed through high school and college into more intricate and abstract fields of color with hidden words and images. But until recently, it never crossed my mind that I should or even could pursue being a professional artist. Then, when the COVID lockdowns hit, I started posting time-lapse videos of me drawing the art just to give people something to watch at home while we were all fighting cabin fever. A friend suggested I could sell them, and I looked around at all the work I had produced and realized, ‘Yeah, I’ve got the makings for a small business here!’
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
At first, not at all. In fact, I’m still kind of in awe at the fact that people can derive a significant income from their art. At one of my first shows, I made just about every mistake you could think of. My work was priced too high, it was too long of a drive for too small of a show, and the only people I sold to were my dad and my brother-in-law, who had come to support me. Not a very sustainable business model! In fact, that night, I was so demoralized (and yeah embarrassed) I almost decided there wasn’t really a future for ArtByMark(er). But I slowly learned how to talk about my art, what kinds of merchandise people were interested in, and what did and didn’t work. Now, I’ve had my best year yet, and I can’t imagine giving it up.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
All of my art is created almost exclusively with fine-tipped markers, which I use for the intricate detailing. A single 8×10 original can take me 20-30 hours to create. My entire portfolio can be viewed at ArtByMarker.com, where you can see the different ways, I’ve married pointillism with abstract detailing to produce realistic images. What people like most about my work though, is searching for the hidden words and images I put in the detailing. For instance, my portrait of Willie Nelson has about 30 lyrics hidden throughout, and I’m working on a Beatles drawing that will have MUCH more.
What I’m most proud of, however, is my deck of playing cards. I grew up immersed in card games on both sides of my family, so there’s a lot of nostalgia there. That being the case, I drew the artwork for an entire deck, including a different design for every heart, spade, club, and diamond. That’s 244 individually drawn suits, all with my signature intricacy and hidden images. And with the design on the back, I hid the name of just about every popular card game you could think of. Talk about a labor of love!
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was a happy, goofy kid. As the younger brother of two sisters, I got my attention by making the family laugh. That and I’ve always loved doodling, drawing, and writing. I think my favorite thing in the whole world growing up was a blank sheet of computer paper. My two sisters, both art teachers, used to fold a piece of paper into quarters and draw detailed mandalas starting from the center out. That definitely influenced my style as well.
Ironically, I didn’t major in art in college, but rather English. My interest in art only went so far as ‘just messing around.’ Even as recently as a couple years ago, I assumed anybody could do some version of my kind of art. ‘It’s just doodling, after all,” I would think. It wasn’t until I completed my “Wild Turkey” piece that I really considered what I do to be a talent.
Pricing:
- 8×10 Prints – $30
- 11×17 Prints – $38
- Playing Cards – $19,99
- Annual Christmas Cards – 24.99 for 20 cards
- Originals – $75-$1,200
Contact Info:
- Website: artbymarker.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdyeart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artbymarker3
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@markdye5100
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@artbymarker?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Image Credits
Lauren Danhof
