Julia Munger Seelos

Julia is a Signature Member of the American Impressionist Society and the Monterey Bay Plein Air Painters Association. Her list of plein air events includes Sonoma, Zion, Easton, Telluride, Sedona, Laguna Plein Air and the Carmel Art Festival. She has been invited five times to paint in the Celebration of Art at the Grand Canyon. One of her paintings is in the El Tovar Collection. Julia has had works juried into the Triton Museum Salon Exhibitions, American Impressionist National Shows, the Santa Cruz Statewide, and received numerous awards in MBPAPA Signature Shows. She received Best of Show in the LPAPA Best of Plein Air. Her paintings have been accepted into California Art Club shows in Pacific Grove and Pleasanton to name a few.

Julia grew up in Kentucky, over looking the Ohio River across from Cincinnati. She loved drawing old barns and tractors and of course horses. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design on a merit scholarship. Julia furthered her studies at the University of Cincinnati majoring in Industrial Design. Interrupting her schooling, Julia married and moved to Colorado. Her love of the West grew with her sojourn in the mountains and ghost towns around Colorado Springs. Eventually settling in the SF Bay area she continued her art studies and graduated with honors from San Jose State University with a degree Design/Illustration. There she studied watercolor with John O'Beck and classical oil painting technique with Dr. Raymond Brose.

Julia had a full career in retail store design as an art director for packaging, store design and sales promotion in San Francisco, allowing her to travel throughout Europe and Asia. She has devoted herself to painting full time for the last dozen years. Julia works alla prima using oils to catch the quickly changing light and shadows. She paints the rural country-side of the California central coast and the dramatic canyons of the Southwest.