David G. Smith
David G. Smith is an observer who interprets images capturing a nanosecond in an eternal dance of light and color and documents his vision with paint on canvas. It is abstract and not an attempt to copy the subject but rather a perspective that can feel raw and not fully finished. The reality is that any view of an image is constantly changing due to light coming and going and bending and blending based upon the rhythm and perpetual motion of our planet around a smallish star.
Learn about My Medium
Artist and his wife Karla, and two dogs reside in
Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067
Dave Smith: My Art Journey
I would like to acknowledge and thank Jeff Yeomans (www.jeffYeomans.com) , Sharon Carol Demery (www.sharoncarolldemery.com and John Lidot (www.giantcanvascompany.com ) for their considerable input, instruction and advice into how I create my paintings. I would also like to thank my wife for always encouraging me to creatively stretch even when I leave numerous paint spots on the back porch.
My journey as Dave Smith the individual is pretty long at this point; more than eighty years. The art journey is considerably shorter. I have been a lifetime sketcher and doodler and even painted but at a small scale like Christmas card. I had a desire to start doing something that was artistic. My wife encouraged me and called Jeff Yeomans, a local artist with much success painting beach, ocean and neighborhood images. She asked if he could consider giving some art lessons to me. He explained that we were in luck because he was giving classes at the Athenaeum School of Arts and I signed up immediately.
A 28-second quick tour of a part of the house.
As an artist, I endeavor to look and to have seen.
My hope is that the dance of light and color in my paintings allows the viewer to see beyond just looking.
— David G. Smith
Subjects
My most frequently used subject is the large scale views of sky and water and the interaction of ever changing light the provides me only an idea of an image that could be an earlier or later lighting event and therefore can only be inexact. As I seek to “lay it down” the temporary nature of the content’s image is accelerated. I didn’t paint a sunset but rather a flickering memory of the way a sunset is perceived in my memory. It is not an etching, but has a fluidity, like an air bubble that moves from the bottom of a glass to the top. If you paint this image, where in the painting is the air bubble? The artist choses the spot and a millisecond later nature would change it. I chose my own spacing and time and also color and shade. Again, I’m not seeking for the exact but more for the freedom of choice to create the event as I feel it changing as I paint, just like it happens in nature but for which none of us can compete. For example, no painting of a sunset is right or wrong. It can be more or less pleasing to the viewer. The artist seeks to please themselves with various degrees of success.
Artist’s Helpers
Stormy (black) & Cory
Trillions of Prisms
“I didn’t paint a sunset but rather a flickering memory of the way an evening is perceived in my memory.
It is not an etching but has a fluidity, like an air bubble that moves from the bottom of a glass to the top.”
- Dave Smith
Medium
From a standpoint of painting durability, cleanup and paintings transportation, plus the smooth composition of the acrylic housepaint it is the right medium for me. Also, I would argue, the color vibrancy of a high quality acrylic is equal to or even more brilliant than oil paints. It also provides a much more bold approach to both quantity of paint used in a painting and the boldness of the color, shade and line interpretation of the subject.
