Painting is like meditation for Jo Presbury-Smith, “You center your mind on the canvas, and you don’t think about anything else,” she said.  “It gives you balance.”  As a child, she benefited from family members’ natural talents, as they drew her anything she asked.  She rode the school bus, drawing pencil portraits of her fellow students.  Raised on a Kansas farm she loved the outdoors.  Jo’s current focus is still found outdoors, painting plein-air floral and landscape subjects near her home in Vista California.

After receiving her B.F.A. from the University of Kansas, Jo was employed as an artist at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Missouri.  She freelanced as a commercial artist in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri while she returned to college, receiving her K-12 Teaching Certificate in Art.

Jo taught in the school system for three years before attending the University of Pittsburgh, PA for her Masters in counseling.  Her love of painting took a back seat while she was employed as a counselor, social worker, and Marriage Family Child Therapist for the next 30 years.  Jo missed painting, so on the side, she studied Chinese Brush Painting for 10 of those years, including study at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou, Peoples Republic of China.  Now semi-retired, Jo is following her first love, painting watercolors.

“How can one live in California and not take advantage of the beauty of our surroundings and not try to put it on paper or canvas?  I look for the subtle beauty in what I see, exploring new methods, techniques, colors, shapes, textures, that I hope shows the viewer something that they may not have noticed before.  I want to show how the sun reflects colors even in the shadows.”

Jo’s paintings have been shown in various local galleries, Vista Village Art Gallery, COAL Gallery in Carlsbad, Escondido Art Association, Kruglak Gallery, Fallbrook Art Association, San Diego Watercolor Society, Studio 21 of Spanish Village at Balboa Park, Icebox I & II in Vista, and Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, P.R. of China.  Jo is a member of Vista Art Association, San Diego Watercolor Society, and Carlsbad-Oceanside Art League.  Her paintings are in private collections in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas.