Steven Smith

I have just completed "Old Friend" a dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel.
This magnificent bird has always been a part of my life. I have watched it almost daily scan the shores of the Saint Croix River for a meal as the tide starts to recede. I have witnessed two mature bald eagles with talons locked, tumbling down in mid air, disappear out of sight around the cove and to my surprise, seconds later find them on the rocky shore so close to me that I could have touched them. I remember in the early days at our Crocker Hill property seeing an eagle land in the almost dead elm tree on our riverbank with an eel dangling from his talons.
steven

In Memory of Paul Seth Smith

It was an honour to have been able to paint this portrait in 1980.
I have known this man since 1948. He played with me. We went on walks in the woods. We fished on the family pond.
This man taught me to see the details of the natural world around me and to always do the best work possible.
This man was my Dad.
He passed away on May 15, 2012 at the age of 84.

"Gail" is my latest portrait completed in May 2010.
It is a dry brush technique on a gessoed panel.

I did my first portrait of Gail in 1975.
It is a dry brush acrylic technique on a gessoed panel.

"RQ" is a dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel.
I first met RQ in the early 1970s when I worked for his grandfather. At that time I was building, painting and erecting roadside signs for the family business. I reacquainted with RQ in 1998 on one of his yearly visits to New Brunswick.

I chose to recreate my wife Gail's chalk board that she used as a child as the back drop for my painting of the antique rocking horse. This dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel was completed in 1980.

That Great American is a dry brush acrylic on a gessoed panel.
After carving this black duck decoy, it just seemed fitting to paint it with the antique forty-eight state American flag.

"Oscar" is one of my early portraits in dry brush acrylic on a gessoed panel. Oscar was a life long friend of my father and grandfather.

"Blue Jay" is a dry brush watercolor done on 140 lb. cold press Waterford paper. The jay is a year round visitor to our garden.

I painted this self portrait in 2001. It is a dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel.
Whether I am working on a sculpture in wood, metal or stone or painting a sweet little song bird or a highly detailed portrait, I am focused totally on that work. I plan every detail. When I finish that piece, it inspires me to create another. When you love what you do. you do it well.

"Marguerite, Always Refreshing", painted in 1979, is one of my early portraits. It is a dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel. Over the years, I collected tin signs and incorporated them into my paintings as in this one. Marguerite lives in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada.

"Seasons End" is the first of my series of salmon fly paintings, dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel. The Cosseboom is a classic fly for eastern Canada where fly fishing season ends in mid-october when the Autumn leaves fall.

A Troy Moment" is a dry brush acrylic on gessoed panel.

Lara 1 is a dry brush acrylic on a gessoed panel. This was the first portrait that I painted of Lara.
It was her lovely voice that first attracted me to Lara. As we talked I saw the beautiful face of a young mother, wife and a professional woman who has since become my friend.

"Lindsay" is a dry brush acrylic on a gessoed panel. It is one of five new pieces that I have painted in the past eighteen months. It was completed on March 11/09. Lindsay, an artist from Baltimore, Maryland, spent the summer of 2007 in St. Andrews.

This portrait was created in 2008 of my friend, Lara. The portrait is done in dry brush acrylic on a gessoed panel.
All of my portraits are done in a dry brush acrylic on a gessoed untempered masonite panel. My portraits of song birds are done in dry brush watercolor.
You can view "The Birds of Crocker Hill" @ http://www.crockerhill.com

Thank you for viewing one of my latest portraits, "Lara".

steven smith