About Me
I am Penelope Grumbine Hornock - I go by Penny most of the time and my family calls me Pen ! My home and studio is located in York, Pennsylvania where I create Abstract Landscape paintings. After obtaining my BA in Art from Millersville University, I was employed as a Surface Designer for 8 years, 5 of which were with a Wallcovering Design Studio and 3 as a freelance designer. I designed wall coverings and fabrics, assisted in trial passing in the shop and helped arrange roomsets for photographic layouts. I left this field to study for and obtain my MFA in Studio at MICA in Baltimore, Maryland.
I worked as a Graphic Design instructor for 3 years before becoming an Adjunct Professor of Art at York College of Pennsylvania. There, I taught all levels of Drawing, Painting, Design, Portfolio Preparation , Student Thesis Defense and was Gallery Preparator.
While employed as a public school art teacher , I taught college level courses in Painting and Ceramics, one or two evenings a week. After 20 years , I retired from public education . Currently , I teach Oil and Acrylic Painting classes at York Art Association and paint full time.
From a young age, I have always had physical elements of materials, drawings used to express ideas surrounding me. My father constructed our home and was always in the process of, or completing various projects. By day, he worked as an executive for a national business. An avid do-it-yourselfer, there was no mechanical nor construction project he would not undertake. He would always sketch out ideas on paper or a nearby napkin, so I was always in an environment of idea formulation and execution. Bricks, sand, wood, stone piles surrounded our back porch during any project. My siblings and I made brick forts, played in sand piles and created jewelry from copper pipe cuttings from scrap materials.
My interest in landscape was forged in my early years, when I would accompany my older brother to find Native American Arrowheads, quartz, pyrite and other interesting geological offerings from our grandmother's home in North Carolina. We would take our hammers, dig, collect interesting artifacts, clean them off and label them, keeping them safe in small boxes. I was interested in their chemical and physical properties, noting the size, shape and color of each. I knew that the colors were related to the minerals and chemicals of their physical components.After undergraduate school, I expanded my interest in geological formations to larger regions of landscape as I was able to travel to different areas of the country and world as an adult.
As a runner I train at altitude in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. I am inspired by the otherworldliness of sky, open space and rock formations whose colors change as the light crosses its many ledges and forms. When there, I feel as if I am on a different planet. I connect spiritually with the environment and to a larger presence within the landscape.I find such clarity in these open spaces and want to avail this clarity of thought and feeling to others. It brings me great peace to be in those spaces and to be able to articulate that feeling to others. Sometimes the canvases are filled with forms, at other times, they are cleared for the essential forms which represent the place and time of the area.
My process of working is to begin with a run or hike in the area of my interest. I will sit and sketch as well as photograph these places, then, return home to my studio to make quick color studies in watercolor or colored pencil. I use oil and or acrylic paints to create the final works. I use layers of thin washes that are applied and built up to reveal a greater depth of color. This depth helps create a sense of space in the work. Oranges, magentas, rusts and yellows contrast with the blues of the skies in the Southwestern landscapes. Then verdant greens, rolling hills and blue skies represent landscapes of South Central Pennsylvania.
I would say that my mission is to show others how one can find clarity and peace from the everyday energies which keep us from connecting to our spiritual selves, by taking people to that place of calm and serenity to remember who we are and why we are here together.
I am Penelope Grumbine Hornock - I go by Penny most of the time and my family calls me Pen ! My home and studio is located in York, Pennsylvania where I create Abstract Landscape paintings. After obtaining my BA in Art from Millersville University, I was employed as a Surface Designer for 8 years, 5 of which were with a Wallcovering Design Studio and 3 as a freelance designer. I designed wall coverings and fabrics, assisted in trial passing in the shop and helped arrange roomsets for photographic layouts. I left this field to study for and obtain my MFA in Studio at MICA in Baltimore, Maryland.
I worked as a Graphic Design instructor for 3 years before becoming an Adjunct Professor of Art at York College of Pennsylvania. There, I taught all levels of Drawing, Painting, Design, Portfolio Preparation , Student Thesis Defense and was Gallery Preparator.
While employed as a public school art teacher , I taught college level courses in Painting and Ceramics, one or two evenings a week. After 20 years , I retired from public education . Currently , I teach Oil and Acrylic Painting classes at York Art Association and paint full time.
From a young age, I have always had physical elements of materials, drawings used to express ideas surrounding me. My father constructed our home and was always in the process of, or completing various projects. By day, he worked as an executive for a national business. An avid do-it-yourselfer, there was no mechanical nor construction project he would not undertake. He would always sketch out ideas on paper or a nearby napkin, so I was always in an environment of idea formulation and execution. Bricks, sand, wood, stone piles surrounded our back porch during any project. My siblings and I made brick forts, played in sand piles and created jewelry from copper pipe cuttings from scrap materials.
My interest in landscape was forged in my early years, when I would accompany my older brother to find Native American Arrowheads, quartz, pyrite and other interesting geological offerings from our grandmother's home in North Carolina. We would take our hammers, dig, collect interesting artifacts, clean them off and label them, keeping them safe in small boxes. I was interested in their chemical and physical properties, noting the size, shape and color of each. I knew that the colors were related to the minerals and chemicals of their physical components.After undergraduate school, I expanded my interest in geological formations to larger regions of landscape as I was able to travel to different areas of the country and world as an adult.
As a runner I train at altitude in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. I am inspired by the otherworldliness of sky, open space and rock formations whose colors change as the light crosses its many ledges and forms. When there, I feel as if I am on a different planet. I connect spiritually with the environment and to a larger presence within the landscape.I find such clarity in these open spaces and want to avail this clarity of thought and feeling to others. It brings me great peace to be in those spaces and to be able to articulate that feeling to others. Sometimes the canvases are filled with forms, at other times, they are cleared for the essential forms which represent the place and time of the area.
My process of working is to begin with a run or hike in the area of my interest. I will sit and sketch as well as photograph these places, then, return home to my studio to make quick color studies in watercolor or colored pencil. I use oil and or acrylic paints to create the final works. I use layers of thin washes that are applied and built up to reveal a greater depth of color. This depth helps create a sense of space in the work. Oranges, magentas, rusts and yellows contrast with the blues of the skies in the Southwestern landscapes. Then verdant greens, rolling hills and blue skies represent landscapes of South Central Pennsylvania.
I would say that my mission is to show others how one can find clarity and peace from the everyday energies which keep us from connecting to our spiritual selves, by taking people to that place of calm and serenity to remember who we are and why we are here together.
20
Twenty three
