Asheville, NC based painter & mandala creator, Tom Cornish, has been honing his skills in both mediums for almost 20 years. Tom has joyfully woven his 25+ year career as a web/print graphic designer into his passion for creating unique artwork. He currently lives with his wife, son and daughter in East Asheville, close to his beloved Blue Ridge Parkway.

Pen Mandalas

The mandalas I create are all done freehand, using no rulers, protractors or templates. The cutouts you see, in both the originals & prints, are done using an exacto knife.

I begin in the center with a single point and move outward. Make one decision and enjoy duplicating that element before making a new one. I don’t begin a piece with a specific design in mind, preferring to allow the design to emerge as I work. There are no wrong decisions and I trust that the final piece will be exactly as it was intended. All but three of my original designs have been done with black ink on paper.

Once I’m done with a piece, I take a pic and redraw it using Adobe Illustrator. Once it becomes a graphic element, I can play with adding colors and backgrounds. It’s an interesting process that allows me to play with my designs.

Acrylic Paintings

A self taught painter, I picked up my first brush when I was thirty years old. My sister, Kirsten, passed suddenly and I needed an outlet to express the anger and grief I was experiencing at that time. My early paintings were much more abstract in nature, but it was a new playground for my creativity.

My desire to paint landscapes was greatly influenced by my time living and working at the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, PA in 2010. I was in my space, elevation and moving water; all the things I never found Nebraska or Texas. A weekend trip down to Asheville, NC for the LEAF festival and I knew I wanted to live near the Blue Ridge Mountains.
A majority of the worked I’ve produced here in NC and been a combination of pleanair and studio painting. I’m a slow painter. I enjoy painting in nature and finishing up at home—learning and growing as an artist along the way.

Mandalas vs. Paintings

The pen mandalas feel more intuitive to me as compared to painting. At times, I’m too critical of my paintings, but I gently remind myself to just enjoy the process and trust that everything will work out. When I paint, my space looks like I’ve been mugged by a group of preschoolers, organized disarray. The mandala work space is comfortable, compact and defined—easily packed up.

Each medium is best enjoyed when I extend grace and trust to myself. I’m not in charge of the quality of my work, only the quantity. Do more art and the rest will take care of itself.