• Dappled Shadows

    $100.00

    This small painting was done en plein air. That is the fancy French way of saying it was painted directly from life outside. I was working in the shadows of a huge old oak tree on the grounds of the Saint Paul Seminary.

  • Custom Pet Portrait

    $300.00$1,200.00

    A custom pet portrait is a unique gift for yourself or for the animal lover in your life. It can be a special gift for people who have lost their pets and want to keep warm memories about their animals forever.

  • Sunflowers | oil on panel | Jeffrey Smith

    Sunflowers

    $150.00

    Sunflowers are my favorite flowers — I’ve always found them to be so cheerful and have such personality!

    Setting up for this painting, I really wanted to focus on just one flower. I decided to push the level of detail on the bloom in the upper right section of the painting. I also cropped in really close to keep the attention on the blossoms.

  • Mississippi River Sand Bar | Jeffrey Smith

    Poplars on the Mississippi River Sandbar

    $300.00

    This painting was created on a cloudy Sunday morning en plein air (a fancy French way of saying outside, bugs and all) near the shore of the Mississippi River, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

    I love gray day. Gray days are wonderful for plein air painting — the light doesn’t change nearly as quickly as it does on a sunny day. There is also something magical that happens to colors on a gray day — thing feel a bit warmer and slightly more saturated.

  • Birch Trio | Jeffrey Smith

    Birch Trio

    $200.00
  • Birch Trees | Jeffrey Smith

    Birch Trees

    $150.00
  • Silver Jar and Green Vase | Jeffrey Smith

    Silver Jar and Green Vase

    $200.00

    This small still life painting was inspired by color. I wanted to create a still life that juxtaposed warm against cool colors.

    The foundation for the warm versus cool theme is laid with the warm brown in the background contrasted against the blue tabletop. Those blues reflect up into the silver canister and contrast against the warm yellow-greens of that fabulous vase.

    Using a warm studio light helps to strengthen the warm colors in the vase and adds some orange reflections to the silver canister. Positioning that studio light so it’s illuminating the set-up from above helps to emphasize the round shape of the objects.

  • Top Lit Pear | Jeffrey Smith

    Top Lit Pear

    $200.00

    When I was a student at The Atelier working in the main drawing room, I was fascinated with the effect that light from the skylight had on the form of whatever we were drawing.

    Nuances were much more pronounced. You could really see the fullness of curves and rounded shapes. An object that looked very flat under other lighting conditions showed that it had a lot more volume when viewed under an overhead light.

    The simple pears

    When I looked at this pear with the light coming in from the side, it looked round, simple, relatively smooth — it was a pear.

    Move the light up over the pear, and now I’m thinking of words like sculptural, statuesque, and shapely. Top lighting brings out the form as no other lighting can. It’s amazing what a change in lighting can do!