Over the course of 40-plus years of painting, watercolor artist Jerry Smith had to learn how to achieve the looseness he now strives for in his paintings. “It’s not really my nature to paint that way,” he says. “When I started out, I was working in that precise style that lots of beginners use, carefully drawing everything and defining all the details.”
Smith’s approach shifted when — having already taken a number of local painting classes — he traveled from his Indiana hometown to the seaside art colony of Rockport, Massachusetts, to take a workshop with artist Don Stone. “That workshop opened my eyes,” he recalls. “Don taught me that if you did proper planning before you started a painting, you could take a much looser approach and still make it appealing.”
Stone’s workshop also introduced Smith to painting outdoors. “He got me started with plein air painting,” Smith says. “When I saw what he could do on location, it blew me away. I went home and immediately ordered a French easel.”
Another breakthrough came when Stone critiqued Smith’s color choices. “I remember him studying my paintings and scratching his head a bit,” Smith says. “Eventually he looked at my palette, saw that I had burnt umber on there, and asked for the tube, which he threw right into the trash. I was so timid with my color that I was mixing burnt umber with almost everything, thinking it would keep other colors from being too intense. That’s why my paintings were kind of gray and dull, while Don’s were bright and beautiful.”
