Will Bullas was born in Ohio. This contemporary California artist was raised in the Southwest. He is best known for his porcelains, prints, and watercolors that are filled with humor. Bullas recalls drawing for as long as he can remember. He enrolled in Arizona State University, where he minored in dramatic arts and majored fine arts. While he was in Vietnam, his skills made him stand out among the rest; his first professional pieces of artwork were portraits of fellow soldiers that he drew in pencil. After returning from military service, Bullas enrolled in the Brooks Institute of Fine Art in Santa Barbara, California. Here, he studied with Ray Strong, a noted instructor. Ray was not only a master of landscape painting, but a master of color theory. Bulla says that Ray was also a good story-teller. Bullas graduated with a degree in oil painting after which he got a printing press job where he was reproducing the work of other artists.
His wife, Claudia, encouraged him to quit that job and concentrate on his own art. Bullas quit his job and that marked the beginning of his yearlong voyage across the Southwest and the Midwest, taking Claudia with him to scores of parking lots and malls where he began to sell his work. Bullas and his wife then settled in Carmel, California, where his art continued to develop, attracting the notice of peers and critics. Bullas put all his effort in his work. He won the Adirondacks Exhibition of American Watercolors, a William G. Morrison Award, the 1981 Strathmore Award at Rocky Mountain National Water media Exhibition, and the 1990 First Place Award for the National Watercolor Society’s Signature Membership Exhibition.
