“Harbor Dusk”, 20×30, Acrylic on Paper, Private Collection

At first glance, the viewer gets the sense that the landscape has been abstracted, and to a degree it has.  But upon closer observation, the shapes the artist has constructed become more representational.  This investigation into the shapes, colors and values is what makes the viewer linger, and when we translate the shapes into our own meaning, we are infatuated with searching for more.  The painting releases its secrets, and satisfies the viewer with its revelations.

  “Early Morning Ripples”, 36×24, Oil on Canvas, Collection of the Artist.

Jerry Smith is a Master Artist with the National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society.  Though not exposed to art as a young person, the natural gift of drawing and interest in art was ever-present.  He started a career in business, but after a gift of paint and canvas from his wife, he began to seriously study art.  He read, practiced, studied, and took workshops.  And his art career was born.

  “Green Street January”, 16×20, Oil, Private Collection

His main genre is landscape painting, and artists such as Don Stone, Omer Seamon and Louise Hansen helped influence his art initially.  Other influences were the Impressionists, particularly Monet and Pissaro.  And though he started out as a realist painter, he moved to impressionism and abstraction.  The rolling hills and farmland are his muse, as well as the rocky coast of Maine.

  “Blue Haven”, 13×30, Acrylic on Paper, Collection of the Artist

Most of Smith’s paintings start out as thumbnails, and these are often done in watercolor.  He may find a subject that he finds inspiring, and from his sketches and photos emerge a series of paintings.  At times the series may alternate between mediums of oil, acrylic and watercolor.  For his more abstracted pieces, he finds he plans out the painting less thoroughly, focusing more on an under-painting, and developing the textures.

Smith uses a basic palette of warm and cool primaries plus some earth tones, usually burnt sienna and raw sienna.  He uses a variety of brushes, mostly long flats in bristle and synthetic bristle.  In his watercolor he uses flats as well, either sable or synthetic sable.  His working surface is gesso-primed masonite, (particularly useful on location) or stretched canvas or his oils, and for his acrylics he uses the masonite or 300lb. watercolor paper.

  “Russet Acres”, 21×29, Acrylic Collage on Paper, Private Collection

Jerry Smith holds Signature memberships in numerous national art organizations, a proud accomplishment, along with a family and a forty-year full-time career as an artist.

Jerry has some very good advice for all artists: “We all like to sell paintings, but don’t focus on doing paintings for the purpose of sales, it will lead to stagnation.  Concentrate on where your passion resides and your best paintings will follow.”

Jerry Smith is represented by Gallery Two, Indianapolis, IN; Brown County Art Guild, Nashville, IN; Proud Fox Gallery, Geneva, IL; Castle Gallery, Fort Wayne, IN; and the Walls Gallery at the Greenbrier, White Sulfur Springs, WV.

To see more work by Jerry Smith, visit his website at www.jsmithstudio.com.

Written by Patricia Tribastone, NOAPS Blog Director