Peter Smith
Childhood was how it should have been for contemporary artist, Peter Smith. Full of joy, wonderment, adventure and exploration. And all of the above were visually documented as he went, after being immediately influenced by his special pocket-sized book of illustrations given to him as a gift one Christmas. This small book of black and white illustrations was called, ‘The Magic Painter’ and was presented with its own paintbrush. The concept of which was to ‘paint’ the individual illustrations with water, and then the hitherto dormant colours would magically materialise in front of your very eyes. Impressive stuff by any child’s standards. Well, back in the early 1970s anyway.
Born in 1967 unto the small town of Mansfield, found in Nottinghamshire, Smith was instantaneously inspired by his little colouring book, so much so that he went forth and set about creating his own world of images with a later-purchased compact watercolour set the budding artist would carry with him everywhere. Smith was so determined that everyone else should share his visions and excitement at the things set out before him, and painting everything seemed like the best way to replicate at that time. Remember, this was a few decades before the advent of mobile phone technology, whilst dedicated cameras were very expensive and only bought and owned by dads and uncles.
Smith made it his (young) life’s work to capture whatever took his fancy or grabbed his attentions whilst out and about. A lot of the time he painted people, yet he was equally interested and captivated by animals, so cats and dogs would form the backbone of his illustrations. Illustrations that he admits himself predominantly ended up looking like vast swirls of colour lacking quite a lot of circumstantial definition. Still, all artists must start somewhere, and Smith seemingly served his art apprenticeship during his childhood.
Structure, vision, perspective and general design appreciation was a gradual process, marked by an absence of a necessary masterplan of clear set of goals in Smith’s case, as he didn’t study art at college and entered the world of employment via unrelated industries, following different vocations. That said, Smith extracted much and more from his stints as a surveyor (accuracy), computer programmer (methodicalness) and latterly, a graphic artist in the fashion industry (awareness of colour and composition). Indeed, it was Smith’s last role before he became an out-and-out professional artist that systematically and unintentionally completed the creative learning jigsaw which he’d inadvertently being piecing together as he had been making his way in life, thus far.
Despite beavering away, perfecting his self-taught art in any spare time available during his early career, Smith didn’t know when, and moreover, if at all, he’d be able to dedicate more time to his love for art and the creation of bold, colourful, user-friendly compositions. That was until 2005, when Smith fulfilled his lifelong dream and was offered the chance to work and collaborate with respected fine art publishers, Washington Green; and from that point forward, things spiralled in a positive manner and he was ultimately able to turn his full, undivided attentions to his first love.
Inspiration-wise, Smith credits the two artists at polar opposites of the style spectrum, yet can immediately see both of their influences in his signature pieces. On the one hand he name-checks Will Bullas for his quirky deliberations, whilst on the other he cites Salvador Dali for his unnerving sense of absolute surrealism. Good call on both counts. On a broader, everyday scale, Smith draws stimulus from folk on the street who physically and literally cross his path and very obviously domesticated animals that meet with his gaze. In all honesty, Smith’s inspiration comes from deep inside, with his sketchbook being a creative window on but his surface thoughts. He then takes these obtuse and varied scatter-gun mental images and runs them across his still trusty sketchbook, filling one within hours as a precursor to the eventuality of composing the scaled original which he hopes will find favour and home when universally published and released.
Born in 1967 unto the small town of Mansfield, found in Nottinghamshire, Smith was instantaneously inspired by his little colouring book, so much so that he went forth and set about creating his own world of images with a later-purchased compact watercolour set the budding artist would carry with him everywhere. Smith was so determined that everyone else should share his visions and excitement at the things set out before him, and painting everything seemed like the best way to replicate at that time. Remember, this was a few decades before the advent of mobile phone technology, whilst dedicated cameras were very expensive and only bought and owned by dads and uncles.
Smith made it his (young) life’s work to capture whatever took his fancy or grabbed his attentions whilst out and about. A lot of the time he painted people, yet he was equally interested and captivated by animals, so cats and dogs would form the backbone of his illustrations. Illustrations that he admits himself predominantly ended up looking like vast swirls of colour lacking quite a lot of circumstantial definition. Still, all artists must start somewhere, and Smith seemingly served his art apprenticeship during his childhood.
Structure, vision, perspective and general design appreciation was a gradual process, marked by an absence of a necessary masterplan of clear set of goals in Smith’s case, as he didn’t study art at college and entered the world of employment via unrelated industries, following different vocations. That said, Smith extracted much and more from his stints as a surveyor (accuracy), computer programmer (methodicalness) and latterly, a graphic artist in the fashion industry (awareness of colour and composition). Indeed, it was Smith’s last role before he became an out-and-out professional artist that systematically and unintentionally completed the creative learning jigsaw which he’d inadvertently being piecing together as he had been making his way in life, thus far.
Despite beavering away, perfecting his self-taught art in any spare time available during his early career, Smith didn’t know when, and moreover, if at all, he’d be able to dedicate more time to his love for art and the creation of bold, colourful, user-friendly compositions. That was until 2005, when Smith fulfilled his lifelong dream and was offered the chance to work and collaborate with respected fine art publishers, Washington Green; and from that point forward, things spiralled in a positive manner and he was ultimately able to turn his full, undivided attentions to his first love.
Inspiration-wise, Smith credits the two artists at polar opposites of the style spectrum, yet can immediately see both of their influences in his signature pieces. On the one hand he name-checks Will Bullas for his quirky deliberations, whilst on the other he cites Salvador Dali for his unnerving sense of absolute surrealism. Good call on both counts. On a broader, everyday scale, Smith draws stimulus from folk on the street who physically and literally cross his path and very obviously domesticated animals that meet with his gaze. In all honesty, Smith’s inspiration comes from deep inside, with his sketchbook being a creative window on but his surface thoughts. He then takes these obtuse and varied scatter-gun mental images and runs them across his still trusty sketchbook, filling one within hours as a precursor to the eventuality of composing the scaled original which he hopes will find favour and home when universally published and released.