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“My love of reading history books started this journey” he says, and each painting in the series has a true historical link. What he amusingly refers to
Smith's initial clay model of The Cantering Caketacular Queen of Bakes
as a "mentally unstable dash" through history, is a triumph of both art and entertainment from a self- taught artist whose brightly coloured
Impossimals have become something of a feature on
the British landscape.
He says his most informa- tive artistic influences have
always been illustrations from children’s books. “My earli- est memory is of a Christmas present that changed my life. It was a small book of black and white illustrations; the book was called 'The Magic Painter' and came with a paintbrush but no paints. To this day I remember the exact feeling I had when I realised that this was a very special book indeed, you 'painted' the pages with water and the colours magically appeared - I was hooked!” Other influences include the
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AUTUMN 2013 FINE ART COLLECTOR
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