Biography - Jane C Smith

Jane C Smith knew she would be an artist when she was in kindergarten. She was always identified in school as an artist. Her talents for drawing developed with many art classes and continued on with her college education. She graduated with a B.A. Degree in Industrial Design, with a minor in art, from Metro State College of Denver.

Her background is as eclectic as her subject matter. She became a computer graphics artist for a large communication company, and when that office closed, she worked at various non-art-related jobs.

All the while, she had been painting, honing her skills. At the start of her career, her collectors bought her wildlife scenes. She branched out into landscape, figurative and western as her interests and skills developed and broadened. Her latest interest is historical, as her life-sized portrait of Abraham Lincoln shows.

“Hiking and riding my ATV into the Colorado back country gives me lots of material for wildlife and scenery paintings,” she says. “You can see so much when riding on trails that the average person will never see. It’s the glory of God’s creation up there, and I want to see as much of it as I can.”

While large format paintings were the hallmark of her start, she now works a variety of sizes into her repertoire. “People like the little paintings a lot”, she says, “ and they especially love birds”. So she will do more birds and small paintings in between her larger pieces.  Jane is not presently affiliated with a gallery, though the possibility of one is not out of the question. She doesn’t feel she is prolific enough of a painter to keep a successful gallery supplied with a painting every two weeks.  She works slower than that, and she wants to maintain quality in her artwork.  Smith feels she is a natural born recluse when she works, but likes to get out with people when she needs a break.

Up till now, she says she has sold almost every painting she has ever created simply by word of mouth from collectors and the national shows she has participated in. Some of the well known shows she has had her work in include, Arts for the Parks, when it was still running, where her work sold; the Lewis and Clark National
Art Competition, where her painting won first place; the Bosque Conservatory Art Classic, and the James Surls Regional Sculpture competition in Aspen, in 2009. For a short time, she was a member of Oil Painters of America.  Her work has been on magazine covers and small publications.  Early in her career, her mountain goats painting “First Storm of Winter”, was selected by well known wildlife artist Robert Bateman, to tour with his work from Casper, Wyoming, where Prince Charles attended the opening, to the Wyoming State Capital in Cheyenne. Willie Nelson, country singer, had a painting she created of him. Art collectors from across the country have bought her work.


Jane has a small studio in Grand Junction, Colorado, where she goes to work after outings gathering subject material and photos on trips into the back country.  She has a western background with her mother having been raised on a ranch, where Jane learned to ride horses and “Date cowboys. That was fun,” she says. Her series of farrier paintings developed from her interest in the horse culture of the West.

Her recently completed portrait of Abraham Lincoln was done out of her interest in American history. Smith thinks our history is being lost, and intends to preserve it the only way she knows how- with art. She is interested in painting several historical scenes, the next one of George Washington writing his farewell address. A trip to Washington D.C. is being planned for 2013, for research material. Robert E. Lee is also being considered.

One of Smith’s most recent projects was completing the illustrations for her first children’s book, collaborating with her daughter, who wrote the manuscript. They are currently in the process of finding a publisher.

 She has recently been creating the human figure more, and in fact, there is almost no subject she will not attempt to paint.  She needs that” unique inspiration” in order to paint a subject. Her interests are wide and varied. “As long as I feel I can maintain good quality with whatever I choose to paint, why not paint anything that comes to mind? The sky’s the limit!”