Billyo O'Donnell

The Grand Canyon

c. 2000

Billyo O’Donnell’s childhood was spent west of St. Louis along the Missouri River where the hills rise up out of the valley to meet the plains with eight siblings on a small family farm. Surrounded by two large landowners of more than 14,000 acres of nature influenced his known world. Spending most of the summer barefoot, except for Sundays, O'Donnell often made elaborate sculptures from pond mud for his brothers to smash. O'Donnell was always creating. At the age of 18, O'Donnell had an epiphany during an accident guiding him to pursue his love of painting. Earning a BFA degree, he met his love Peggy, found work as a staff artist at Maritz Motivation for 12 years while receiving many national and international awards for his paintings. His family grew with three children Megan, Timothy and Erin. Invited to participate in the 1995 San Juan Capistrano Mission Paint Out as one of five guest artists from across America. O'Donnell has then continued to participate in plein air events for the last 19 years. He has received the highest awards at many of America’s prestigious plein air invitationals that often included many of America’s top landscape painters.