..... Artist Barbara Azad remembers as a child, using vibrant colored crayons, pencils and tempera paints as she practiced drawing and painting from her Midwestern backyard-porch picnic table during lazy vacation summers. The patterns of light and vivid colors changed throughout the day, she recalls. It was better to begin drawing in the early morning before the bright sun made me squint at the paper that had became glaringly white, she remembers. These precious hours formed the beginnings of an artistic pattern that has enhanced her life.

 

A native of the Chicago suburb, Elmhurst, Illinois, award winning painter Barbara Azad studied technique in evening classes and weekend painting retreats to balance her career in the business world and raising a family. Azad now paints from her studio overlooking the magnificent Mendocino coast and forested rolling hills.

 

Azad's work is intended to encourage the viewer to look beneath the surface of everyday visions. Using joyful, loose strokes of color, she paints on canvas and archival quality paper. Azad's use of acrylics and mixed media on her subjects reveals a magical painterly style that is inspired by our world's energetic forms and colors.

 

Finding her inspiration from viewed images or emotions expressed, Azad hopes her paintings stir your spirit. "For me," says Azad, "painting expresses life's previous energy. I hope my painting speak to your soul and come to life."

 

Azad's previous exhibits have been awarded best of show and placement at Bay Area juried exhibitions, and her work is among the permanent collection of surrounding county wineries.