Society of West-Coast Artists

Barbara Todd was born in Wisconsin and attended college there and in Syracuse, New York.  After graduate school, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue a career in finance.  Throughout her professional career, she was invariably involved in some creative endeavor to balance her analytical side, including theater, ballroom dance and art.  In 2004, Barbara decided to leave the finance industry to pursue her artistic side.  She earned a degree in Multimedia Art and Technology and is now a freelance web designer specializing in artistic websites.

While she enjoys web design, Barbara’s true passion is painting.  An artist in various mediums for 15 years, Barbara first tried watercolor in 2004 and never looked back.  She loves the translucent properties of the medium, and the challenge of “saving your whites.”  She enjoys painting florals that dance with light, inspired by her love of gardening and of roses in particular.  She has studied with various local artists including Julie Andrews, Joyce Faulknor, Guy Magallanes and Stewart Givot, and continues to take classes to further her art education.

Barbara can be reached at (650) 369-6859.

           

Art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember although as a youngster I didn’t equate my pages and pages of doodling at “art”.  But by high school I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the arts, specifically as a teacher.  I entered San Jose State majoring in art, but after I year I married and left college and put those ambitions on the back burner.

After too long a time away from it I returned to my love of art in the late 1990’s. I started studying watercolor with Oneida Hammond, fell in love with the media and started taking various workshops with watercolor artists such as:  Diane Maxey, Kathleen Alexander, Tom Lynch, Dale Laitenin, Steve Curl & Sandy Imperatori [plein air]). I joined an art group, started exhibiting and began to sell.  And though it took almost 50 years to realize my dream to become an art teacher, in 2004 I was asked to teach watercolor with the Fremont Union High School District Adult Education program (located in Sunnyvale) and I now teach four classes. I have also conducted one-day workshops for SWA and SCVWS.

I have exhibited and been in many shows (juried and non-juried) at several locations in Redwood City, Burlingame, Palo Alto, Woodside and Sunnyvale.  I have received several awards including a First Place Award in the Watercolor Landscape category for my painting “Rest Stop” as well as the Bagicha Landscape Sponsor Award at  the 2011 Redwood City Spring Art Show

I am a member of the Sequoia Art Group, Society of Western Artists (SWA), and the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society (SCVWS). 

My goal as an artist is to bring pleasure to those who view my work and maybe feel through it the pleasure I felt in its creation.  My goal as a teacher is to not only teach the techniques of the watercolor media but to encourage my students to experience the pleasure and pride of their own artistic creation.