New Hampshire Artist Tomaso Schena Passes Away

🔴 Artist Thomas "Tomaso" Schena visited restaurants, bars, salons, and businesses

🔴 "I'm looking for people to draw and make them happy," Tomaso told New Hampshire Chronicle in 2022

🔴 He used markers, Sharpies, and highlighters to create vibrant caricatures

Thomas "Tomaso" Schena, an artist known for his art using markers that captured the essence of his subjects at many southern New Hampshire businesses, has died.

Rockingham Alert was first to report Schena's death.  A cause and time of death was not disclosed.

Riding his bicycle, Tomaso would stop in at restaurants, diners, bars, and salons to draw the patrons and staff, and didn't expect anyone to pay for his craft, he told WMUR's New Hampshire Chronicle in a 2022 interview.

"I draw them and give it to them anyway, and I don't expect nothing. People give you money sometimes. I don't care whether they do or not," Tomaso said. "I  go into places and make the whole crowd happy. These are just regular cartoon pictures. It's letting people know I see them as a human being and I am interested in them."

"I'm looking for people to draw and make them happy," Tomaso said.

Remembering Tomaso and His Art

He used Crayola washable markers, Sharpies, and highlighters to draw caricatures of his subjects that caught the little nuances of his subjects, from the clothing and jewelry they were wearing to the look in the eyes of a couple.

A server at Casey's said Tomaso would notice the color of someone's eyes. He would do his drawing, and it would look just like his subject. For people who had multiple drawings by Tomaso, he noticed something different every time.

"It's so fun to see it every time, because you're wearing a different shirt or you have a headband this time, and he gets all your details really well," the server said.

Tomaso told New Hampshire Chronicle that he started as a child when he was a baseball card collector but couldn't find the cards he wanted.

"I just drew my own. It's how I communicated," Tomaso said.

The Plaistow Historical Society on its Facebook page announced it is collecting copies of Tomaso's artwork for a display in his memory.

"Rest in peace, Tomaso! You touched us all," the society wrote.

A family friend has created the public Facebook group "In Memory of Tomaso" to share memories and pictures. A GoFundMe page was be created to help with funeral expenses.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH