Kelly Jean Smith is a representational fine artist living in upstate NY. She specializes in portraiture and figurative work in oil and charcoal and also works digitally in Procreate on the ipad. She earned her Master’s in Fine Art from SUNY New Paltz and during the pandemic completed a yearlong mentorship online program with Visual Arts Passage in illustration. From 2007 - 2020 she attended weekly life drawing sessions at Saratoga Arts and has taken numerous workshops in portraiture, figure drawing and oil for well over a decade. She has taught introductory drawing, figure drawing, and oil painting classes at Saratoga Arts, The Art Center of the Capitol Region, and The Atelier at Arlene’s. She also worked for BeTa Community Programs and taught art after school classes grades k-5. In 2025 she was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from Saratoga Arts through the NY State Regrant program. Her focus was narrative illustration, the singular female image, and spirituality. The paintings from that project were printed as notecards and sold at Pitney Community Farms to benefit the local food insecurity program. The cards have so far raised as of this September $318. In June her oil portrait of the late John Lewis was sold and will be donated to the Rosa Parks room at the O Museum in Washington D.C.