Paintings

copyright 1969-2010 Michael D. Smith

This is Painting Number 2 from July 1969.  I decided to include it on the site since it's the first painting I did on my own--not for an art class--in order to express a personal vision.  (For this reason we will not discuss Painting Number 1, Beautiful Bowl of Plastic Fruit, March 1969.)  Earth/Moon took about a week and was completed on July 18, 1969, during the Apollo 11 moon mission, but owes its inspiration more to the images of Earth as seen from Apollo 8 in December 1968.  That Christmas my mother had conspired with my art teacher to get me my own set of oil paints.  Curiously, my art teacher had told my mother to get "large surfaces" for me to paint on.  But I agreed that the first set of 16" x 20" canvas-covered boards were the immense surfaces I needed!