Judy Mays is a native of Gloucester County, VA, with very deep family roots dating back to the sixteen hundreds. In 1978 she left the area and moved with her husband, an executive with the General Electric Company, to Cincinnati, OH, where they lived for twenty-three years. As a child, Judy always dreamed of becoming an artist; however, she elected to place her art career on hold while raising their son and involving herself in church, school and community volunteer work. While living in Cincinnati she attended classes at the Middletown Fine Arts Center, in Middletown, OH and the Art League in Wyoming, OH, where she won several awards.
Upon returning to Virginia in 2001, Judy attended painting sessions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School for many years in addition to studying with other professional artists in Williamsburg.
Her favorite medium is oils; however, she also does portraiture work in pastels, and most recently, has mastered the medium of professional colored pencils in which the artwork is made to look as if it were rendered in oils. Her favorite subjects to paint are children’s portraits, still life, and local flora and fauna.
In 2011, her painting “Dutch Masters”, was the winning entry for the Gloucester County Daffodil Fesitval’s twenty-fifth anniversary poster contest. She was inspired to create this particular work after recalling her childhood years of picking daffodils that grew wild in the nearby fields of an old neighboring colonial plantation.
Recently, Judy was the second place winner in the 2018 Guinea Heritage Association Fine Art competition in Gloucester, VA, and also received Honorable Mention in the Williamsburg Contemporary Art Center’s 2018 Juried Regional Show.
Judy currently resides in Williamsburg with her husband where she loves creating beautiful works of art in her custom-designed studio!
Judy Mays Fine Art 