Lorraine Glessner
About Lorraine
Lorraine is a former Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art, a workshop instructor and an award-winning artist. In 2024, she founded Mark-Making as Practice Drawing Group and the It Begins with a Mark Series of mark-making lectures. Lorraine Glessner’s love of surface, pattern, mark-making and image has led her to combine disparate materials and processes in her work such as silk, wood, wax, pyrography and rust. She has a diverse art background with skills that include painting, sculpture, photography and digital imaging. Recent professional achievements include curating With Wax: Materiality & Mixed Media in Encaustic at Chester County Art Association in West Chester, PA, a Grand Prize Award from the show (re)Building, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY and a recently appointed position as Interim President of the Board of Directors of Collage Artists of America and Core Artist Instructor at R&F Paints. Lorraine's work is included in many mixed media and encaustic books including, Encaustic Art in the 21st Century by Ashley Rooney and Nuance, a curated book by artist, Michelle Stuart. Lorraine frequently lectures and participates on academic panels at various Conferences including The International Encaustic Conference, Celtic Convergence, SECAC and The College Art Association Annual Conference. Her work is exhibited locally and nationally in galleries, museums, craft centers, universities, Fine Art Shows and more. Lorraine brings to her teaching a strong interdisciplinary approach, mixed with a balance of concept, process, experimentation and discovery.
You can view Lorraine’s work at:
www.lorraineglessner.net
www.instagram.com/lorraineglessner1
www.facebook.com/lorraine.glessner.3
Class Details
Found Drawings: Mark-Making from the Mundane
This workshop explores the Found Drawing (drawings that arise as a by-product, rather than any formal process) as both concept and material practice. Beginning with photographing incidental marks encountered in daily life, we will translate overlooked lines and forms into multilayered pieces using traditional drawing tools, cold wax, R&F Drawing Oils, powdered graphite and charcoal as well as encaustic. This workshop prioritizes experimentation, intuition, and process—inviting chance, material interaction, and accumulation to shape the work. Participants will develop new ways of seeing, deepen their relationship to mark-making, developing a personal visual language rooted in the mundane and the accidental.
Capturing the Mundane Through the Found Drawing
Since learning the concept of the Found Drawing two decades ago, it has driven my work as process, inspiration and composition. The innovative concept of the found drawing-drawings that arise as a by-product, rather than any formal process-is introduced and discussed through photography, contemporary and historic work in the disciplines of painting, printmaking, crafts, fiber, sculpture, installation and performance. Utilizing familiar materials and processes such as the body, smoke, fire, stitch, beeswax, found and industrial materials, the marks can serve as both the foundation of content to the content itself. Woven into this talk are methods to find found drawings as you go about your day and photographing them as an exercise. This practice can work to sharpen your observational and compositional skills as well as teach you to see line and form in inspiring ways.
