An award-winning painter, Tracy Budd grew up in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. She graduated from Bridgewater College and attended James Madison University for post- graduate courses. She has always been interested in nature, people, and places around her. She is attracted to light, shadow, and pattern play upon these subjects, and finds the acrylic medium perfect for accomplishing these effects. By layering transparent pigments and building out to opaque pigments, incorporating scraping, stenciling and glazing she can go forward and backwards in the painting process with ease, accomplishing her main goal of building a captivating surface. It has taken her many years to realize the painting for her is simply about the “surface” she creates, though which she can portray her feeling about a subject.Tracy is a faculty member at The Studio Scholl in Roanoke, Virginia, where she teaches a layered acrylic painting course, “Painting Basics and Beyond” and mixed media classes.

Tracy has won numerous awards, exhibiting her paintings locally, regionally, and nationally. She is a signature member of the Virginia Watercolor Society, and has won awards and exhibited in the San Diego Watercolor International Show, Rocky Mountain International Show and Southern Watercolor Society. Tracy exhibits her work at LinDor Gallery, Black Dog Gallery and Montano’s in Roanoke, Virginia. Her joy is teaching where she views the problem solving and excitement of painters weekly and is always inspired by her students.