What’s Your Story? Cardon Smith

From the moment he walks in the door to the time he heads home, Cardon Smith makes his presence known through his art work and personality. Booming through the door with a proud “Hellooo,” he heads straight for the art table where he makes his rounds to say hello to everyone. Cardon even makes the time to pray for an individual who is hurting and makes sure they are comfortable. He has a special set of art clothes he changes into, which are now taking on their own kind of artistic quality after days of using his pants to wipe the paint off the brushes.

Cardon is always looking for a chance to be a helping hand but when he’s doing his art he’s very focused, drawing and painting what makes him happy. He doesn’t do art for the money but for the enjoyment of starting and finishing complex pieces of beautiful art but that’s also why he’s so successful. There isn’t a painting that Cardon has done that doesn’t have several layers of paint, he often changes his colors and leaves spaces and windows for the colors from underneath to peek through.

Often Cardon gets inspiration from blueprints, house drawings and even walking outside and finding a building near him to draw. He’s painted the Galbraith Chapel, the College Book Store, The Kennedy Museum, and several other buildings on Court Street. Other times he reaches into comics to get inspiration for figure drawing. Lately he’s been self-learning how to draw comics by using a light box and tracing some of the lines. He mix-and-matches the characters on a page and then he starts in on his layered painting style and the end result is a colorful action scene with characters that are transformed. It’s a common occurrence that Cardon will sit back admire his work, crack his knuckles and look over at someone with a huge smile on his face; exaggerated by the light from the box making his face glow. He’s designing and building his own comic book and he will always have it ready to show off if you ask him about it.