Mary O. Smith
“It was done from an open studio class I taught in St. Simon’s Island, Ga. It is watercolor done in a quick sketch method. Letting the watercolor dry between layers. She was a really good model. Attractive and held the pose for us with just a few breaks. In watercolor, I like to plan the white of the paper and it is an essential part of my style. Casual and expressive is the pose. Designing the whites, the edges and keeping a likeness is important to me. Conveying a moment of time and light with color and shape intrigues me with every painting. I try to engage the viewer with my use of suggestive and loose brush strokes and use of color and composition. I wondered when I painted Allysa: What was she thinking about during our short painting session.”
Mary O. Smith majored in Interior Design and received a Bachelors of Design degree from Louisiana State University in 1982 but really didn’t start painting in watercolor until 1994. “I loved drawing in all levels of my education,” she told us. Having the drawing skills, she took weekly watercolor lessons and then eventually took more immersed watercolor workshops from instructors Judi Wagner, Tony Van Hassseltt, Judi Betts, and Roberta Carter Clark. She currently paints in both watercolor and oil mediums.
About entering outdoor festivals & shows, showing and selling her watercolor work, Mary O Smith told us: “I cut my own mats at the beginning and used metal frames to show them in a simple frame so the artwork would be the focus. As an Interior Designer by trade, I understand the importance of a wonderful piece of artwork being framed to enhance the interior design of the space and the artwork itself. Framing is an expression of both the artist and the client, in my opinion.” Mary also entered national shows which require the artwork to be framed very simply.
Now she mostly paints in plein air events with both oil and watercolor. “I try to make framing on location as simple as possible,” she says. “I order pre-cut mats with metal frames and ready-made wood frames for the oils.”
Mary has been a customer of Stu-Art Supplies for over 15 years and during that time has used an assortment of Nielsen Frames and Artique 4901 White archival matting.
Mary O. Smith has been teaching watercolor plein-air workshops herself and for art groups in Georgia and Florida for a number of years now. She’s a signature member of Georgia Watercolor Society and has won many local and national shows with watercolors and oils. “Each painting is a new challenge,” Mary said. “The mix of each color and value to recreate a scene from life is the challenge.”
Discover more Mary O. Smith’s beautiful paintings on her website.
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Stu-Art Supplies has been serving the art community for more than 50 years. We are a second generation family business which strives to provide our customers quality products at the most reasonable prices. Our manufacturing facility is located in Baldwin, NY and we have been shipping our products throughout the US and Canada since 1965. Our business was developed to help both professional and amateur artists, photographers, students & hobbyists mat and frame their artwork themselves thereby saving them the cost of having to get their mats and frames from a custom frame shop or struggle with the difficulty and frustration of trying to cut their own mats. Our product line offers artists, photographers and art & craft hobbyists a way to frame, mat and display their artwork in an aesthetically pleasing manner at the lowest possible cost. Stu-Art Supplies is owned and operated by Lisa Hubley and Andrew Ray. Visit our On-line Store
