UWS May 2019 Member Meeting: Betsy Dillard Stroud, AWS D. F., L.M. NWS

Bio

Betsy Dillard Stroud rides the twin, turbulent steeds of painting and writing. At the age of eight, Stroud received a set of oils from an insightful uncle and she began painting with a private tutor. Stroud is a signature member and Dolphin Fellow of the American Watercolor Society in New York and a signature member of the National Watercolor Society in California, the Rocky Mountain Watermedia Honor Society in Colorado, the Southwestern Watercolor Society (of which she is a former president) and a Royal Scorpion and life Member of the Arizona Watercolor Society. A nationally acclaimed and award winning artist, Stroud received her M. A. in art history from the University of Virginia where she was the first woman in the graduate arts program. She had just completed her course work and her orals for the doctorate in art history, when she wrote her first book. The writing of this book was a turning point. With its publication, Stroud became a full time painter and never looked back.

Stroud’s significant artistic change came with the commissioning of a painting for the World Bridge Champion in 1989. Life changes brought her to Arizona in 1996, where the spirit and color of the west continues to influence her painting, so that her work is a potpourri of her Eastern and academic background tempered and burnished by her experiences abroad and in the southwest and west. Her paintings are in hundreds of private and corporate collections in the United States, England, Canada, Japan, the Bahamas, and Australia. Since 1987 she has been a highly respected workshop teacher and adjudicator of more than 50 international, national, state, and regional exhibitions. In the past few years, among the shows she has adjudicated are: the American Watercolor Society, the National Watercolor Society, the Florida Watercolor Society, the Arizona Watercolor Association, and the Juror in the Experimental Category for the Artists Magazine International Competition.

Formerly, Associate Editor of North America for International Artist Magazine, (1998-2001) Stroud has written for many major art magazines for over twenty years. From 2002-2006, she served as a contributing editor to “Watercolor Magic” for which she wrote a regular article on creativity.

Stroud is one of 28 Americans who was invited to exhibit in November (2007) in Nanjing, China in the Jiangsu Museum in the first International Exhibition of Watermedia Masters. She has exhibited in 22 one -woman shows and over 160 national, international, regional and state shows. She served on the Board of Directors of the American Watercolor Society (2004-2006.) She is the author of Painting from the Inside Out (North Light, 2002) and a Dutch edition of her book was published in Holland in 2005. Her most recent book on creativity: The Artist’s Muse: Unlock the Door for Your Creativity was published in December, 2006.

Betsy Dillard Stroud is a professional speaker and a former president of Park Central Toastmasters in Phoenix.

She resides in Scottsdale with her two highly civilized cats, Hamlet and Tabby T.

Visit Betsy’s Website