Bucks County Artist-Maggie Martin

Since I’m constantly posting about my own photography, I decided that maybe it’s time that I share with everyone work from other Artists who I get to work with. I’m going to try really hard to keep up with this series and post about other people in the creative community who I love and adore! For my first post, I decided, why not start off with someone who I’ve known for most of my life. Since second grade to be exact. This lovely lady is Maggie Martin. Best friend and incredibly talented artist.

Let me start off with a little back story. We met in second grade, don’t exactly remember how or why, but we became close friends almost immediately. We’ve done everything from cheering together, having classes together, and most importantly creating together. Ever since I’ve known her, she’s always been making art. It was kind of a weird feeling for me to have to ask “When did you get into art?” Ever since 2002 until this exact day, there was never a moment of “I’m going to start drawing” or, “I think I’m going to take an art class.” I’ve just always known Maggie as an Artist.

“I looked up to my cousin when I was growing up who always was doing and teaching me art. I would look through a book she had called “The Art Book” which was filled with different mediums of work by multiple artists. For Christmas one year she bought me my own copy and I kept practicing from different art books.”

Maggie’s art ranges from insanely detailed portraits, to smaller sketches of bugs and plants. All which have insane attention to detail. Sometimes when looking at her newer pieces where she include multiples of the same item, they almost look as if she just copy and pasted them with a computer rather than them each being hand drawn.

Through out the years, she’s been constantly churning out beautiful work. Through high school and even into Arcadia, where she went to college, her top priority was always her art. I asked what her favorite mediums to work with are, I knew this would be a little tough since she constantly goes through phases in which she uses one more than the other. She said, “My favorite medium has changed through out the years. Up until college I enjoyed working with graphite, which is a very forgiving medium. Mistakes can be easily fixed. Then in college I took an art class where I worked with charcoal. I fell in love with working with charcoal and getting my hands dirty. It’s a great medium to add a bunch of contrast. Recently Ive been sticking to pen and ink and watercolors. Pen and ink is very relaxing for me and I love to add stippling effects. Watercolor is very different for me because I always worked with black and white and finally I’m using a bunch of colors.”

Inspiration can come from many different places for all artists. Some can be obvious, while others can be subtle things most people don’t notice. Maggie draws her inspiration from hundreds of things. She says that most of the time she’ll gain inspiration from Instagram. “I find a lot of inspiration from different types of artists on Instagram. It’s a great platform to showcase your work to the world, and I follow all different types of artist. Seeing their work inspires me to try new things and keep making new art.”

Maggie’s ultimate goal with her art work is to make people happy. She said as she’s creating it helps her to relax and unwind from all the craziness that any given day can throw at her. Recently she’s been selling at local flea markets, and just this past month finally made an Etsy. She hopes her pieces can bring the same amount of happiness she gets as she’s creating a new piece! If you’d like to check it out there’s a link down below, as well as her other social media links where you can view more of her work!