SALEM – For local artist Tina S. Gagnon, a talented pencil artist, the devil’s in the details.

Recognized at many art shows, her process is to sketch in a sketch book first before beginning to create her intricate art.

“I then transfer that onto the work board that I’m using,” she said. “And then, as my husband calls it, ‘coloring it in.'”

Gagnon said she spends an incredible amount of time, patiently and carefully working on a one-inch by one-inch square and completes that before moving onto the next.

“It takes a lot of patience,” she said. “It’s about an inch an hour and that’s probably the only thing that I have patience for.”

For as long as she can remember, Gagnon has always been “drawn” to art. She recalls elaborately doodling, creating the cartoon-like figures on the back of matchbook covers.

“You’re probably too young to remember ‘Tippy the Turtle,'” she said. “I did it so often, I think I can still draw him with my eyes closed. But I used to dream of getting that art scholarship that the back of the matchbook promised. I dreamed of going to art school.”

Gagnon said the practical side won, as she instead went into a career in the printing industry.

“I worked in commercial art for a couple of decades,” she shared, “until technology took over and half the printing industry is barely half of what it used to be.”

With the support of her husband, Gagnon pursued her first love, fine arts, and she began trying to determine the best media to use.

“I ended up with colored pencils, which no one was really doing at the time,” she said. “It’s not that common for fine arts, but with the ‘adult coloring books,’ and that sort of thing, that kind of took off, but that’s more for relaxation. It’s not really a fine art.”

Fourteen years ago, Gagnon said she started to get serious about her colored pencil drawings. Lately, she said, with the pandemic and working from home already, it didn’t really affect her.

“Part of the deal when I started to do my artwork, was that I often took care of my in-laws at the same time,” she said. “And my mother-in-law died during COVID, so it’s been kind of up and down. It was hard.”

Gagnon said as far as now, trying to get back to her routine, she relies on selling her artwork at galleries and shows but with the coronavirus, that’s been difficult.

“I sell my art at these art shows, like the one at Greeley Park,” she said. “And a lot of these shows have been cancelled, so there is little avenue to show and sell my work this year, so that’s been kind of tough.”

Gagnon has been competing in art shows for nearly a decade, and has been awarded sixty-five ribbons, and in a field of dozens of talented artists, she was awarded a “Best in Show.”

Two weeks ago, in Goffstown she exhibited at her first show in many months and said the response was great. This weekend, she’ll be at the Greeley Park art showsd, where two years ago she was also awarded a “Best in Show.”

“At the show a couple of weeks ago, people were very respectful,” Gagnon said. “Everyone was wearing their mask and I think people were happy to be out just to see something different. I was really happy- it was a really big crowd. Hopefully, Greeley Park will be similar.”

To decide on what she will draw, Gagnon focuses on two varying subjects: nature and nostalgia.

“Colored pencil is really great for details,” she said. “So, the details of nature, colored pencils really hone in on that- the specific colors, for example. And as for nostalgia, I draw things like skeleton keys and marbles, things that evoke some sort of memory when you look at it.”

The scale of Gagnon’s drawings are all different sizes, from small 8” x 10″ to quite larger.

“I just finished a giant parrot that’s about 29” by 19“,” she explained. “The bigger pieces that I do typically take about 100 hours.”

She said she likes to work on different pieces at once depending on whether she likes the piece or not.

“Sometimes I’ll be working on something and I absolutely fall in love with it and have to keep going until I complete it,” Gagnon said. “Other times, I struggle with it and will put it aside and work on something else.”

Gagnon added that there are even some pieces that she’s been working on for a couple of years and is a harsh critic of her own work.

“That’s called being an artist,” she said. “We’re all art critics.”

Her husband, Gagnon said, “is my biggest fan. But he’ll tell me when something isn’t right and give me the ‘eye’ that I’m not seeing through. He gives me good feedback.”

She said there isn’t that one piece that she hasn’t tackled.

“But I don’t do people and I don’t do landscapes,” she said.

Florals, animals and especially nostalgia are Gagnon’s go-to’s.

“There is one piece that I have which is a pile of buttons,” she said.

“It evokes the feeling of grandma’s button box. People can look at it and imagine their hands running through them like they did when they were little. Inevitably, they’ll say, ‘I have my grandmother’s button box.’ And they have a story they can relate to the artwork.”

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