Simmons chosen as Arts & the Park’s featured artist
Nationally recognized pen-and-ink artist Gary Simmons will be the featured artist for the 2018 Arts & the Park festival.
Simmons and his wife, June, reside in Hot Springs, where he owns Gary Simmons Studio. He moved to Arkansas in 1973 and began his freelance artist career in 1976. In 1991, he began teaching in graphics and drawing at Henderson State University where he retired as Professor Emeritus of Art in 2013.
Simmons wrote “The Technical Pen: Techniques for Artists,” published by New York’s Watson-Guptill Publishers in 1992. The book is published in Chinese and Russian in addition to English. This effort grew out of teaching more than 60 national pen-and-ink seminars for Rapidiograph, the manufacturer of Simmons’ pens. The book is now published by Echo Point Books in Vermont and is available online.
Drawing is Simmons’ first love, a news release said. He has taught numerous drawing workshops with an emphasis on the fundamentals of drawing because he assumes this is the most useful drawing information he has to offer. He recognizes that drawing skills are essential to most art efforts and believes that helping aspiring artists to understand their inherent tools of logic and reasoning when approaching the creation of a drawing are the most helpful information they can discover.
Simmons will instruct the workshop Drawing’s Best Kept Secret during Arts & the Park on May 2.
Even though his main effort is with the pen, Simmons works in terra cotta sculpture, watercolor, oil and mixed media. He is the Mid-America Science Museum’s artist in residence through the months of May and June. His work is available for viewing during the Hot Springs Cultural Alliance’s launch party at the museum on April 28.