Judy Boyd

Judy was born in Texas has lived throughout the Western US, and in Mexico, and Ecuador. Her earliest artistic attempts were encouraged by her grandmother, an accomplished amateur oil painter, and her mother, an electronics designer. As a young woman, Judy’s aspirations to become an artist were put on the back burner while she started a family, earned degrees in cartography and information technology, and enjoyed a career at a geographic information system software company. Judy picked up her brushes again in 2000, experimenting with watercolors and, for the first time, using birds as subjects. The more birds she painted, the more fascinated by them she became. She was inspired to earn a Certificate in Field Ornithology, establish an Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Central Mexico, and take early retirement to travel in North, Central, and South America to observe, photograph, and paint birds. Her watercolor bird portraits have been selected for juried exhibitions in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. Judy’s bird portraits are characterized by fine brushwork, a high level of detail, and fanciful backgrounds. Her unique borders tell a story about the birds’ habitat: a sinuous blue-green border on her American Flamingo, for example, represents the blue-green algae that turns flamingos pink when they eat it; the border surrounding an African Kori Bustard was inspired by Maasai tribal designs. Returning to the US from Ecuador in 2012, Judy settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband, Allen, and three rescue dogs. She moved to Jemez Springs in 2021 and became a member of the Jemez Fine Arts Gallery. She is a signature member of the New Mexico Watercolor Society and a former member and past president of the Santa Fe Society of Artists. She had the honor of being selected as the artist in residence at the Audubon Camp on Hog Island in Maine in 2017. Her work can be seen online at birds-by-boyd.com.