Mark Smith hesitates to call himself an artist. “I keep saying I can’t paint,” he says but admits, “I guess I can.” He adds a qualifier: “I don’t paint like normal people.”

That seems to be a good thing. Since picking up a brush two years ago, Smith has sold more than 400 paintings.

The 62-year-old Rockledge resident and Philadelphia native has long appreciated art. He never imagined, however, that he would one day create it.

He has daughter Amanda, 9, to thank for that. While working at home on a painting for school, she invited him to sit down and paint with her. He started “jabbing around” with the paint—and the rest, as they say, is history.

Smith’s work is fanciful, unexpected, whimsical. In paintings that somewhat recall early surrealist work, Smith creates beings—from people to fantastical creatures—all of whom appear to be up to something within rich and intriguing landscapes.

The paintings’ titles—which often reflect the humor and cleverness of the artist—both shed light and add intrigue. A depiction of ducklike creatures poised at a starting line bears the title, “The Race to Decide if Pluto Should Be Reinstated as a Planet.”

Smith is considered an “outsider artist” in that he has no formal training.

But to him, that’s a plus. “I never was told what to do,” he says. “That’s to my advantage, though…When I paint people or critters or whatever, they’re on my terms. If someone else paints, they’ve got to paint a person to look like a person. I don’t have to. I use all my weaknesses for strengths. I just do what I want. It’s my world; I invented it.”

If he received instruction at this point, Smith says, he would “worry about painting well.”

Smith uses acrylics, and a range of tools—not just brushes but plastic knives, sponges, rollers—whatever he can find.

He has no agenda or preconceived notions when he begins a painting. After selecting a canvas, he spreads paint around…and soon they begin to appear: a pensive blue blur of a creature here, a green bean-like fellow there.

Though he has no idea where such figures come from, Smith appreciates them. “They make me laugh,” he says. “I get a kick out of them.”

He’s not the only one. Selling almost exclusively through Facebook Marketplace, Smith has shipped paintings across the country to buyers as far away as Oklahoma, Colorado, Oregon, and California.

And he’s drawing attention in other ways. The Baltimore-based art magazine Gabbangelion recently ran a feature on him, and his work is on exhibit at Greenbrier Library in Chesapeake, Va.

Locally, besides Facebook Marketplace, Smith’s work also is available at The Moon Gazing Rabbit in Lansdale.

There is little in Smith’s background to foreshadow his current artistic success. Though he attended school through his teens, the highest level he completed was fourth grade. His professions have included race car driver, Muay Thay fighter, and bass player.

When it comes to painting—in his own distinctive, endearing style—Smith seems to be a natural. “I don’t even try to be creative,” he says. “It’s just part of what I do. If I started to think about being creative, I don’t think I’d be as good.”

Ultimately, Smith measures success by what he hopes his paintings do for people: “make them happy.”

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