Mark Smith

Hello, my name is Mark Smith and I grew up in Petoskey, Michigan. I attended Olivet College and there I attained by Bachelors of Arts degree in Visual arts with a concentration in Biological Illustration. I began my journey as an artist at a young age. I first fell in love with art in elementary school with the encouragement of my mother, an art teacher. In middle school I gravitated towards making detailed colored pencil drawings of birds of prey and in college I fell in love with painting landscapes in oil. I started my landscape painting journey with largely impressionist and post impressionist roots then moved more towards pointillism and now incorporates all three of these respective styles into my work with more focus on a combination of realism and surrealism. I work in layers, starting my landscape paintings with a thin under painting of opposite hue to the final layer which contains liquin, an oil paint medium. In the next layer, I map out the painting using general shapes, hues, and tones still with less liquin included. As the painting progresses the shapes hues and tones become more concise and I work more Alla Prima, as opposed to the previous layers, which are generally wet on dry. The last steps for each one ...

I attended Petoskey Public Schools. I graduated in 2014 from Petoskey High School. I then attended Olivet College and graduated in 2019. I hold a B.A. in visual arts with a concentration in biological illustration. The technical work involved with this concentration has allowed me to further my capabilities in the art of landscape painting, particularly in the area of rendering realistic detail.

I was featured in the 2020 Guild Member Salon show put on by Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey, Michigan.