Various locations — museums, galleries and studios in Downtown Fresno and Tower District — hosted the March 3 ArtHop, featuring paintings by artist Dustin Scharnick.

Scharnick has been an artist since 2000 and taught drawing at Fresno City College for three years. He started pursuing art full time about a year ago. He describes his work as personal and memory based with emotional derivatives.

“[ArtHop is] good for Downtown [Fresno],” said Scharnick. “It gets people down here. It’s grown a lot in the past four, five years. The engagement is sort of good.”

Artist Daniel VanGerpen said he loves “interacting with people” during ArtHop, VanGerpen has been an artist his whole life. His mom is also an artist. He enjoys working with painting, photography, and mixed media. He collects rocks and sticks when hiking.

Featured artist Robert Weibel uses a variety of mediums for his art pieces. One of his pieces on display was made by igniting gunpowder onto paper. He used fumage, or candle soot for another piece. Weibel can be found on FaceBook and YouTube under Robert Weibel and at robertwiebel.com.

Attendee Daniel Schwartz said he attends ArtHop regularly and enjoys coming back because “the exhibits change. [It’s a] cool social environment and kind of a party environment.”

One display that Schwartz liked in particular was Chris Sorensen’s Art Scientifique. This display uses art to showcase aspects of science.

Betty Torres, a first time ArtHop goer, said, “We wanted to see the different art from different places.”

ArtHop occurs on the first and third Thursday of every month. The events take place at various venues in Downtown Fresno and Tower District from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Many artists place their art pieces on display and attendees also get to enjoy live music. All individuals are welcome to attend the free event.