MattsmithMakes

Repaint of a picture I did years ago. It’s up on my website. From my Daily Painting series. 4x6”, oil on Bristol
Do yall call em red onions or purple onions? I feel like growing up it was only ever purple. Then, like the Bernstein bears thing, I’m also not sure. Either is correct, I suppose.

I’m trying out something new over here! I’m trying to get better at oil painting - to get better and faster and also have more paintings available to sell. so I’m gonna be making some oil paintings every day I can and just posting them on my site for sale. No hooks or fancy stuff- a phone photo, basic explanation and the painting. They’re gonna be flat rate and mounted on nice foam board with a frame once they’re fully dry. If you want it, you can get it, if not it’s all good! MattSmithMakes dot com. They only give you 2
Links a month for free now so you’re gonna have to put it in the browser lol I’ve done this for a few days and had a blast so I’m gonna see if I can do it while school is in

Starting on this custom piece for a friend. A companion to My Perfect Cake I painted a couple years back. Excited to get going on it! As always if you want a commissioned picture I’m happy to make one for ya! I’m getting the page on my site working right now but if you wanna message me we can work it out. I can tell ya I haven’t officially calculated the price of a 12x12 framed custom oil painting so you’ll receive the Early Bird, Vibes-Based price like I’ve been doing for years if you lock it in soon. I’m gonna be giving them six weeks to delivery 📦 varnished, framed, ready to display. Trying (key word!) very hard to make it seamless and enjoyable for people! Let’s work it out! I wanna paint you a picture! I can manage 8-10 spots before the end of the year for sure.

Over the Summer I’ve designed and built some storage, standing countertop for painting, and tool storage for the studio. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m really pleased with the results! It’s really helped me with my work.
In order of appearance:
1. - Computer work area (formerly upstairs) with inspiring stuff pinned up.
2. - Wide angle view: paper roll holder with Bee paper, custom cabinets, cork board for notes, and a large canvas WIP.
3. - Flat file showing its current use: good paper (expensive, for painting. Watercolor blocks, plate Bristol, arches, etc) Big Notes for mind maps, Note Supply Depot for supplies, and useful scrap pieces of the Bee paper.
4. - CD storage shelves and my dad’s old Pioneer receiver. Flashed Linux on the only laptop we have with a functioning disc drive lol
5. - Cabinet for small organizers (measured wrong, supposed to be able to fit the little one on the big one)
6. - Standup painting zone with two custom cabinets supporting a melamine countertop from the ReStore. Cabinets above for painting mediums and tools. Drawers with hardwood fronts. Cherry-facing everything due to having a bunch of cherry.
7. Drawer fronts made from hardwood scraps: spalted maple, walnut, oak, cherry, mahogany, and poplar. Was kind of a lot of work but I love how they look!
8. A cherry-faced cabinet with shelf pins and matching shelves.
9. A bulletin board made from cork and foam core for planning, keeping notes, and pinning references. A standing desk with a drawer for note-taking and a mahogany-faced tabletop. Hardwood scrap drawer base. A handle is an offcut of a cutting board. I got some embroidery thread and pins to make a crazy-guy conspiracy board but for art ideas
10. A small cabinet for sensitive woodworking tools - my grandfather’s Irwin brace bit set, Japanese hand plane, Diablo router and Forstner bits, Kreg and dowel jigs, etc. It’s faced in oak!

Friends! Some of you know about this but if you don’t! - We are fostering SIX (6!!!) beautiful wonderful little kittens. I’ve done my absolute best to get all the info, links, photos, and accounts together to get this thing done. BTW - the account is Six Kitten Smith

We’ll be the first to tell anybody - we’ve never done this before. We live beside a busy road, and the mama kept taking the kittens back and forth…we had to intervene. They were all saved, and the mama has been neutered and released and is still bopping around our house asking for food.

If you can share, save, like, repost, donate, whatever - we appreciate it all!

I’m going to be posting on the Six Kitten Smith account as much as possible and sharing the posts to this account here and there. Folks, if you know me even a little you know I’m not terribly good at all this type of promotional, in your face, mildly obnoxious internet stuff that performs well on here - but that’s not going to stop me. I’m swallowing my pride, choosing not to be embarrassed and sharing stuff. Maybe it will help me get more comfortable being seen and embarrassed on my regular account. - Also, they are all totally healthy, not yet vaccinated, neutered, or medicated for fleas and ticks (yet). We cant deliver any of the kittens, as fun as that would be. We’re hoping to find indoor only permanent homes for these kittens, with folks who will love them and take care of them. Communicating interest does not guarantee an adoption, first come first served, we reserve the right to refuse adoption for any reason (idk man im nervous about legal stuff!)

That’s all for now, I’m off to scoop litter (again)

-Matt & Ennis

Thrilled that I get to participate in the coolest show around again!

We are thrilled to welcome new and returning fine art artisans to the 2026 FestivALL Capitol Street Art Fair, May 30-31!

🎉Participating Fine Art Artisans:
Bashful Bee Press
Cali Wesson Artwork
Corrissa Flesher Art & Designs
HepCatz Design
John Wirts Art
Juyeoun Kim Art
Marisamade
MattsmithMakess
Melissa Doty Artwork
Meredith Young
Sadie Valzetta Studio

Join us on Capitol Street in Downtown Charleston, WV for this favorite FestivALL event for two days of art, live music, entertainment, and more!

Alright folks here’s the last batch of paintings from this years (finally successful) !! I’ll do a rundown for some details on each one but I just wanna say that this little endeavor has really brought me back. I had a really tough winter mentally and wasn’t feeling like myself. Returning to The Practice has filled my heart up so much and I feel like I am finally getting some momentum with this thing.

- 1. Blue swing, gouache on illustration board. This one took me a long time but I’m really happy with how it came out. The house next door really does have this old swingset and in the evening the sun hits the middle blue swing and it’s just the best. Been wanting to take a run at this one for a while.
- 2. My Perfect Cake Part 2. A while back I painted a slice of my birthday cake from a few years ago. A close friend bought it and wanted a companion piece to hang with it. This isn’t really a Plein air technically since I did it from a photo but I did paint it outside. It’s also a pre-painting study for a final in oils! Prettyyyy pretty happy with this one tbh. Some stuff to fix in the final but yeah love this one.
- 3. YMCA Rear and Magnolia, gouache in toned sketchbook. I took all my painting stuff with me to the gym just to try out car painting from the cab instead of the rear. Really tight but it worked! The magnolia is also next door and I just love how it looks.
-4. View from the Portable 1 & 2. I subbed for the music teacher at Mary Ingles and all the music classes are in the portable. I happened to have a couple hour long breaks and I snuck in a couple of studies. Tried to capture the chilly Spring morning feeling.
-5. Sage in Spring and Portable Chairs. Had another long break the next day and snuck in another study, plus our sage is coming in again and it was looking nice that evening.
-6. Working on the Ginkgo- tried to capture clearing debris from around our little Ginkgo sapling
-7 & 8. Our maple tree is so beautiful and I also wanted to try out cold press paper. The last one was just noodlin around and I wanted to include them!

Another set of paintings for ya! I finished all the paintings for the month but got busy and forgot to post them. Anyhow here’s another 7 little paintings, some in my sketchbook and one on illustration board.
1. Entrance and Under Magnolia. Acrylic gouache with limited triad. I wanted to paint outside with acrylic gouache just to see how it went and went with a very warm and chromatic triad of Ultramarine Deep, Vermillion, and Med. Yellow Deep. Really challenging but fun.
2. Shadow Shape 1 & 2. Designer/Artist Gouache. These were really fun and were both focused the shape of the values and color temperature. Still just around the house.
3. Holly Trunk and Across the Way. I feel pretty good about how the Holly Trunk came out. I wanted to do a low key painting almost entirely in shadow, which I think mostly worked. The other one was a real slog and I don’t like it at all haha That tree was so bright green/yellow in real life but I struggled with its color and shape a lot. That’s why I do these though! A good vector to practice on. Would leave the tree out completely if I did it again.
4. Can left behind. Some guys were mowing our neighbors yard and left their gas behind. I thought it looked nice against the fresh cut grass and tried to block it all in quickly before they inevitably came back. Would compose it differently next time, but I think it mostly works.
Do you have a favorite from this set? I have the rest of them coming soon. I’m gonna get a good scan of all of them and put them on my website very soon. I’m also working on a more detailed write up I can send out in my newsletter which I’m very sorely behind on. Be on the lookout!