Biography
“Watercolor,” a Seattle art critic once wrote, “is largely a matter of technique, discipline and skill. Byron Birdsall is a master of all three.”

Byron Birdsall ... a near-perfect combination of world traveler and artist. Here is a man truly excited about being alive; and this same excitement illuminates his work.

Birdsall is a landscape watercolorist ... a man who likes to play with shapes. His watercolors are distillations of reality, scenes reduced to their basics, with the integrity of the subject intact. His mentors are the great Japanese wood block printers, Hokusai and Hiroshige. Their influence is particularly evident in his washes ... flawless gradations of color that ebb and flow.

Since his first solo exhibition in 1967, Birdsall has had over fifty one-man shows. Of these, the artist has enjoyed a succession of sellouts. His works have been accepted in many juried art shows, and the artist has won numerous awards for his works, including first place in the All Alaska Juried Representional Show at the Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum.

But Birdsall is far from content to rest on his laurels. “The artists I respect have one motto ... DO,” he stresses. “That’s how the good works emerge. It’s a weakness to wait for the Muse to speak. To be an artist, you have to be doing, all the time.” From the many paintings he does each year, Birdsall selects a limited number for reproduction.

As a continually evolving artist, Birdsall has initiated two new approaches to his work. In 1981, he began working in oils, and, more recently, an interest in Russian icons has been his primary occupation.