Featured Artist for the SEASON OF WINTER
All about Nancy Smith
Nancy’s artistic endeavors have been varied over the years. As a child she always had a passion for art— especially drawing and painting. Her first formal study of art began in college when she started working in oils and discovered the thrill of working abstractly with brush strokes to create shapes, and layers and juxtaposition of colors suggesting movement. Later she began to work abstractly in the third dimension, where she created bronze sculptures using the lost wax method.
A disciplined study of drawing offered a new direction. Viola! She began to draw more realistically! Adding an ink wash to a pen and ink drawing of an owl led her to begin working with water-based media and she loved the way the transparent colors flowed on the paper. She began making representational watercolor paintings, finding the influence of Paul Cezanne and Charles Demuth in many of her paintings.
She discovered a fascination with reflections and the interplay of light and shadow on objects and scenes. This affects the way she perceives the world and is reflected in her paintings. She has always been drawn to water and finds that living near the sea exposes her to a constant variety of interchanging light and shadow and infinite variations of the ocean that one day can be leaden grey, the next day dark and ominous, and on still another, brilliant blue and turquoise. On her daily walk in her Santa Barbara community, she observes the changing clouds and the mountain views and finds delight in the wildlife that visits the gardens—squirrels, cotton-tailed bunnies and especially the birds.
Her beach community has provided an endless source of subjects to paint, from waves breaking on the shore, to birds, to shells and flotsam that is tossed ashore by the waves. Flowers thrive in the coastal environment and have always been important subjects for her art. Her love of boating and the nearness of the Santa Barbara Harbor and the Channel Islands are a constant source of inspiration; and for her, watercolor is the perfect means to express these visions.
A new phase has begun in her painting life. She has rediscovered the spontaneity of abstract expressionism and has gone back to that earlier style, while also continuing realistic work in watercolors.