View source for SWEENEY, Fred




<span style="color:#006400">'''SWEENEY, Fred'''</span>  (b. 19XX) is a lifelong resident of the Central Coast of California and is an avid watercolor painter of scenes and places throughout this area. He is a retired senior design principal of Santa Barbara's oldest architectural firm founded in 1906. He has designed many major public buildings throughout the Tri-County area, and in the Central Valley. Some of these include the Santa Barbara Airport Terminal, Cuesta College - North County Campus, the Paso Robles Airport Terminal, and college buildings at UCSB, Hancock College and Reedley Community College.

Fred Sweeney has sketched and painted since childhood, and began painting with watercolor in earnest in 1985. In 1990 he joined with 3 other watercolorists to paint regularly on Saturday mornings. He is currently exploring work in oils with the same painting group.  His paintings are in both private and public collections. These include commissioned paintings for the Santa Cruz Island Foundation; as the watercolor group was asked to paint a collection of paintings to document Santa Rosa Island when it became a part of the Channel Islands National Park. Sweeney's watercolors of the local Santa Barbara area were also displayed for many years throughout the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara.

Sweeney's paintings reflect his interest in settings which exhibit the play of light that is also expressive of the California scene painters in settings which exhibit the play of light that is also expressive of the California scene painters of the first half of the 20th century. He also likes to capture scenes and places that have historical significance; and which are represented in both paintings and landscapes and buildings. As a native of the Central Coast of California, he continues to paint scenes which are part of his family's history in the region. Sweeney also sketches and paints during his extensive travel throughout the United States and abroad.