"SHOWING at DAGNY's COFFEE SHOP" 1600 20TH St.

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MARK ENGELIEN AT DAGNY’S 

  Mark Engelien will be the featured artist for the months of October and November 2026 at Dagny's .

Mark Englein studied drawing, watercolor, and ceramic as part of his profession in architecture at Cal poly, SLO. He created architecture projects In Bakersfield and California From 1971 to 2013. He also served as  Director of the Museum of Art in Bakersfield from 2014 to 2016.
Mark's early medium for recreational art was with watercolor painting. Business pursuits and parenting limited the time he had to dedicate to this activity. 
Mark began to use ink sketches as a means to create memories of places he and his family visited in their travels. He would often share sketches with friends and family to help commemorate shared adventures. 
In 2018 Mark began using both digital rendering and watercolor to augment his ink sketches. Mark used the confined time created by the pandemic to develop his use of watercolor as his primary medium. While architectural subjects and urban spaces embody much of his subjects, he has added other subject matter to his body portraits, wildlife, nature, are now themes for his artwork.

Mark began capturing memories of travels beginning with a river cruise with his family in 2000. For over 15 years he filled numerous sketch book journals with ink drawings, a medium easily reproduced to create prints to share with his traveling companions. “Mark the spot” represents his definition of this phase of his art journey. The act of drawing your impression of an experience is so much more profound than a photo, each sketch has a story that lasts forever.

In 2018 Mark attended an urban sketching workshop in Costa Rica under the guidance of James Richards a renowned Urban Sketching Master.  Further workshops in Tuscany, Italy - Santa Fe, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona were attended with his wife Debbie who is now fondly known as the “Sketch Monster”. Art is now an activity they share. The couple now regularly stop to sketch and paint during their travels, sketching in their notebooks, and producing art from their photos while touring. 

Dagny's is located at corner of 20th and Eye Streets in Bakersfield