From his website:

Mark McDowell’s studio is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. His work has been featured in over forty, one-man shows and numerous group exhibitions in museums, art centers, and galleries across the United States and Europe, since 1976.

He’s been interviewed by, and his work reviewed in more than one hundred books, magazines, and journals from around the country, including The New York Times, USA Today, The Denver Post, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Time Magazine and PBS. His work is in many public, corporate and private collections. In recent years Mark has worked with Andaz and Hyatt Corporation in project design and fabrication.

He says:

More than thirty years ago, while building my studio, I did some pencil sketches on scraps of wood. I really liked how the wood took the pencil marks and
I have always loved to draw. At times I have returned to this medium, enjoying the common everyday nature of the materials.

Over the years, my primary work has been oil on canvas, though I have always drawn a sketch first. In November of 2001 I set my paintbrushes aside and
dedicated much of my studio time to drawing, using color pencil on birch wood panels.