EDWARD SMITH ARTIST/PAINTER

My name is Edward Smith, I’ve been a student of the arts since 1963. At age five with the prompting of my father, a singer/musician as was my mother. Living in a family of artist and musicians (We all sang in choir, worked in plays, and played instruments of our choosing), the arts was normal for me, sometimes during dinner my parents would breakout in song, it was normal.

By the second grade my teacher noticed my ability and submitted one of my pastel drawings (Titled; The Circus) to the Grand Rapids Children’s Art Museum. I came to Lansing in 1977, living on the east side, a graduate of Lansing Eastern High School in 1978. I was teaching art by age 17, at what was Oak Park Elementary also on Lansing’s eastside after a teacher recognized my work and asked me to teach his class of 3rd and 4th graders color theory. I continued as a tutor for over thirty years in my home as well as within educational institutions.

  I attended Kendall School of design, from 78 to 80 which was a two year commercial art program. My major was Illustration with a minor in Commercial Art.  While at Kendall I studied under, Ferdinand Martinez, a Puerto Rican American, he painted abstracts.  I knew then that commercial art was not what I wanted, I wanted to be a painter. Ferdi, as we called him, taught my figure drawing classes at Kendall, but I was always at his studio; there we would discuss color theory, using his abstract paintings as examples and Fine Art.

I wasn’t happy with my paintings so in 2009 I decided to stop painting all together and focus only on my sketchbook and sketching for a full year. After a year past, I felt energized with a renewed focus and a lot of options to paint from after a year of drawing. I paint in a variety of styles, because no one subject is the same, so along with color theory, I also consider application and elements of design.  The results were amazing, the paintings began take on a life of their own. I hope you will enjoy them, and thank you in advance, Edward Smith.