Paint Locally Tallahassee native brings what he knows to the canvas for Senior Showcase Exhibition
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"I think somebody ought to have, somewhere in their psyche, an understanding of the things that they paint; it's not just copying images, but having some relationship to whatever it is that is your subject matter."
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Tallahassee Democrat - 08/27/2017
Page: D-01 |
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“Firefighter Retired” by Robert Dewitt Smith
Painting has also taken him as far as Nigeria with the U.S. Agency for Internal Development, where he served as an adviser to the country's Minister of Education teaching local artists methods of using art for television and instruction. At the Tallahassee Senior Center, one of his main focuses in oil painting is imparting the importance of value versus color to his beginning art students. "I like to respect the basic principles of how painting is derived," says Smith. "So often I hear students of mine and other painters saying how much they love color, but color is secondary to value. If I take a picture of the painting in black and white, it should still stand out as a good painting. But if you don't have the values, the darkness and lights, then it will not stand out no matter how good the coloring is." This ideology can be witnessed in Smith's photorealistic painting, "1911 Downtown Tallahassee," which won first place in the Gadsden Arts Center's annual show. The work captures a historical photo sourced from his late grandmother's photo album, showing his great aunt and her two sons seated in a horse and buggy on Monroe Street two years before it was paved. Smith put in extra research to understand the mechanics of the carriage, and only utilized ivory black and titanium white oils to stay true to the era and highlight the photograph's details. |
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