Born 1962 in Helena, Montana, Deb says she always knew she would be an artist.  She started oil painting at the tender age of 5 and began exhibiting her work at age 12.  She sold her first paintings around this time and from then on she was hooked!  Her first impressions came from studying the illustrations and paintings by C.M. Russell and Frederic Remington, as she created cards and letters to friends and family members, depicting horses with cowboy and Indian characters riding across the pages.

   

    She worked part time as an artist throughout her life and gained several commissions along the way. As a young adult, without the opportunities for a formal education, she supported her artistic passion through a wide variety of unusual jobs including; paste-up artist for a local newspaper, computer sales technician in California, banking clerk at the Bank of Tokyo, and more recently as a working cowgirl here in Montana. After her daughter left for college, Deb turned her focus full time to her art career.

   

    Deb draws inspiration from many sources, but also the work of artists; Andrew Wyeth, N.C. Wyeth and Winslow Homer, just to name a few.  Her life as a working cowgirl has also inspired her to create paintings depicting rural farm and ranch life, and the people, livestock and wildlife that live there.

   

    Although primarily self educated, Deb believes the learning process never ends.  She has studied under contemporary artists Ned Mueller, Sheila Rieman, Tom Gilleon and Dan Goozee’.  Currently she is studying the work of French painters, L.A. Lhermitte and Rosa Bonheur and their role in 19th century farm paintings.  Not surprisingly, her work is starting to include historical subjects as well as contemporary themes.

   

    Deb and her family own a cattle ranch near Cascade, MT.  Her studio and the ranch are located on the old Jones Homestead in Chesnet Valley, built around 1897.  The ranch, one of the grandest of its time, is a constant source of inspiration and subject matter, with astonishing views of the Big Belt Mountains, Square Butte and the Rocky Mountain Front.

   

    Deb Schmit is an award-winning artist.  She has been juried into many regional and national shows including; Oil Painter’s of America and the C.M. Russell Art Auction.  Her work includes portrait, figurative and landscape painting in both oil and watercolor.  She is a member of the National Watercolor Society and Oil Painter’s of America.