Linda Lucas Hardy
Internationally known artist, Linda Lucas Hardy was named as one of the 10 Artists to watch in 2008 by Southwest Art Magazine. Her articles and artwork have appeared in The "Artist's", "International Artist", The American Artist "DRAWING", "Southwest Art", "American Art Collector" and Northlight Magazine. Her work has also been published in a dozen art books and one text.
Linda is well known for her stunning paintings done in colored pencil. In 2007 she won the CIPY Award and the EXPY Award - the two highest awards given by the Colored Pencil Society of America. Linda has the distinction of being the only colored pencil artist to have won both awards. In 2012 she won her second EXPY Award, making her the only colored pencil artist awarded the EXPY twice. She is also the only colored pencil artist to have won the International Artists Magazines Grand Prize Award which she received in 2005.
Although thrilled with her accomplishments and accolades in colored pencil Hardy longed to return to her first love, painting, so in 2008 she put her pencils aside. The depth and breadth of her work as well as the level of color saturation and power that she achieved with colored pencil is now being applied to the medium of oil. In the few years since she made the choice to return to painting Hardy has again earned National & International recognition. Since 2008 she's earned 15 more awards including Third Prize in the 2012 International Artists Magazines Favorite Subjects Category for the same painting that had won her First Place and the Honor Award in two other shows. To date Hardy's work has been shown in more than 70 National and International exhibitions and she’s won an equal number of awards and honors, many being Best of Show.
She is a ten-year merit award recipient in the Colored Pencil Society of America, past President of CPSA 215, the Dallas/Ft Worth District Chapter and past President of CPSA 222, the Texarkana Chapter of the Colored Pencil Society of America. Linda is an associate member of Oil Painters of America, Portrait Painters of America, the National Oil & Acrylic Painters Society (NOAPS) and she enjoys membership in the Mt. Pleasant Texas Art Society.
Linda currently lives in Omaha, TX with her husband of 43 years and their YorkiePoo, Max. Linda has been teaching classes and workshops since 2000.