Contact The Artist

www.marciehawthorne.com

2950 Hawk Hill Lane
San Luis Obispo, CA  93405
805-544-0596
marcieart@gmail.com

Commission Details
I welcome commissions!  E-mail for details.
My studio is available for client visits by appointment.

Marcie Hawthorne is an award-winning muralist, decorative artist, natural history illustrator, designer and fine artist who brings her unique combination of skills together to create large and small scale painted environments for residential and commercial clients.  She has lived in San Luis Obispo for 30 years and travels throughout California to paint commissioned works.  She has a degree in biology from Duke University and an art degree from California College of Arts and Crafts, and continues expanding her experience by taking plein air and mixed media workshops.

Although her current focus is on murals and faux effects, her art career has spanned a huge range of endeavors to include book and commercial illustration projects, graphic and sign design, color consultation, and teaching nature journaling art workshops.  Her primary focus in book illustration has been in natural history and gardening, with over a dozen books for adults and children to her credit.  Some of her clients include Sierra Club Books, Sunset Books, Scholastic Books, Rodale Press, Nichols Garden Seeds, The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and The World Wildlife Fund.  Marcie’s paintings and drawings are in many private and public collections, and her commercial illustration work has international distribution.  She continues to accept commissions for fine arts and illustration. Most recently she has painted a large mural in the new San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum.

As a successful freelance muralist, I have had the privilege and joy to creatively translate the dreams and tastes of many clients into painted reality in both a large and small format.  I have found that murals and faux effects are an excellent contemporary interior design solution for both private and public spaces.  High quality images and beautifully textured colors add personalized visual appeal, harmony and atmosphere.  A mural possibility, for instance, of a trompe l’oeil, or “fools the eye” window allows the viewer to “see” the outside view beyond the blank wall, or transports the viewer into the tranquil world of a far away, favorite place. 

With artful painting, problematic architectural features are adjusted: a low ceiling can be transformed into a sky, a cement or wooden column can become elegant travertine, an awkward kitchen wall can become a work of art with a botanic vignette and calligraphy, etc.  From the large panoramic mural that changes the perception of space to the smallest whimsical image that alters the mood of the viewer, customized mural art and faux effects can transform the ordinary into the truly extraordinary.  I have painted in a wide range of styles to meet the demands of various projects: precise realism, impressionistic, airbrushed, decorative, modern hard-edged.

My background in biology, medical illustration, graphic design and fine arts have given me an analytic eye, a well-researched approach to the design of a project, and a commitment to a beautifully executed final art piece.  A passion for world travel has allowed me opportunity to study many historic and contemporary murals. International travel to Africa and South America with a focus on sketching wildlife and landscape, and plein air painting in California have me delight in “bringing the outside view in” for mural clients.  Plein air painters Libby Tolley and Kevin Macpherson have greatly influenced me, as have the muralists Graham Rust and Yannick Guegan, masters of the painted illusion. The late Central Coast painter, Arthur Renshaw, was my mentor and dear friend, and instilled in me the joyous attitude of the artist who cannot wait to get up each morning to paint and make the world a more beautiful place.