MattsmithMakes

I got the opportunity last year to paint these two cats cuddling on the forest floor for a wonderful client named Layla. She very bravely trusted me with almost no direction and I’m as surprised as anybody that it came out looking pretty alright! This style of working might not look that different from the outside, but I really approached it with a real Trust of Process type attitude. Towards the end the finer details came in, but for most of the piece I was using a fairly large brush. One of the details she asked me to include was a Lilly of the Valley, which is such a beautiful flower I enjoyed painting very much. Layla and her fiancé are heading to England soon, so you could basically say I’m an international artist now! I hope you like it! I’ll be opening up my books for a limited amount of commission slots later this year, so be on the lookout for that.

I’ve got a bunch of new stuff up in my little shop. Stickers! Prints! Originals! I’ll be shipping stuff out until the 15th- and you can use the code TUESDAY20 on my site for 20% off! If you don’t get anything from me this holiday- please shop small and support artists and artisans working the old fashioned way. We need your support now more than ever!

“Monongahela Ridgetop” 8x10”, Acrylic gouache on Canson illustration board. Just a quick study I knocked out in a couple of hours trying to work on painting clouds. I think it was relatively successful, but I don’t know if I really captured the feeling I felt when I was there. I don’t really consider it a ‘completed’ painting, but it might be one I revisit later! My palette for this one was Ultramarine Deep, Yellow Deep, and Scarlet, all by