From weddings to baseball’s All Star Game, a Macon artist finds her calling

Caroline Stroud was born to be an artist.

You might say it was her destiny. After all, her mother’s maiden name is Painter.

As a child, her best friends were every crayon in the box. She was a rising star with a paint brush in her hand. On career day at Macon’s Gilead Christian Academy, she dressed up as an artist.

Her parents, Curt and Nancy Stroud, encouraged her to develop her talents and follow her dreams. When she enrolled at First Presbyterian Day School, she was inspired by her high school art teacher, Nancy Butler, who was instrumental in her growth. FPD already had produced well-known artist Steve Penley, whose works have appeared
everywhere from the White House to the World of Coke to more than 20 congressional offices. 

But there was a measure of hesitation in her dreams. Although Stroud wasn’t worried about missing a meal, she wasn’t quite ready to join the ranks of starving artists. 

So, after graduating from FPD in 2014, she majored in marketing at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia and minored in studio art.

“It wasn’t until after college that I was confident I could make it a career,’’ she said. “That’s why I was a business major. It was something to fall back on.’’

Stroud, 29, took a corporate job in Atlanta. She painted on nights and weekends. She accepted any kind of artwork requests, which were mostly portraits. And she learned that one job usually led to another and another.

“That’s sort of the rite of passage for everyone starting out … anything that is going to sell,” she said. “Once I had enough booked out, I said I’m going to take the leap, and I went full time in 2019.’’

As a fine artist and event painter, doing “live” wedding portraits became the cornerstone of her business. She now does between 30-40 weddings a year. She completed her 200th in late June. 

She is getting married on August 9. “Everybody’s first question is: ‘Who is going to paint your wedding?’ ’’ she said, laughing. 

Caroline did her first ‘live’ wedding painting when she was a junior in college. It was a gift for her cousin.

“That opened the door to where I started doing them for friends and family,’’ she said. “There is so much instant gratification in this day and age that it’s really cool for people to get to see a painting coming together over an eight-hour period. They get to see the whole process.’’

She begins by meeting with the couple to plan a wish list of wedding scenes. It could be walking down the aisle, exchanging vows, a kiss at the altar or a dance at the reception. She arrives at the venue early and uses her camera phone to take “reference” photos.

Stroud said it’s both fascinating and entertaining for the wedding guests to watch the work in progress. They ask questions. They check back for updates.

“It’s fun because it’s different,’’ she said. “People are so used to photos. With this, they get a behind-the-curtain look at painting. Some of them have never seen an artist in a studio.’’

To add a little levity to her work, she paints the bride first and then adds the body of the groom. “I don’t do his head until the end,’’ she said. “So everybody is talking about the headless groom.’’

When Stroud started out with her wedding gigs, she had a self-imposed deadline to complete the artwork by the end of the festivities.

“Then I realized they don’t want to take home a wet painting on their wedding night,’’ she said. “That took a lot of the pressure off me. I was too zoned in, and I wasn’t enjoying it. One of the reasons I was there was to talk to guests and be entertaining.’’

She did a “live” painting of a different kind last year when she was commissioned by Onward Reserve apparel to create a collage for one of the official T-shirts for the Major League Baseball All-Star in Arlington, Texas. She did the special edition T-shirt, then attended the game at Ranger Stadium to paint in “real” time.

“I was on the level next to one of the retail stores sitting next to a mannequin that was wearing the T-shirt,’’ she said. “I didn’t get to watch the game. I was painting what was already on the T-shirt, and people got to come up and see me.’’

She was also commissioned to paint a commemorative collage for Onward Reserve shirts for next week’s Major League All-Star Game, hosted by the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday, July 15 at Truist Park. (It has been a busy summer for FPD graduates. One of her former FPD classmates, Austin Cox, has pitched for the Braves this season.)

Last October, Stroud did a custom painting for Home Depot co-founder and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank at the dedication of the new Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta hospital in Druid Hills. She was commissioned to do three paintings that hang in the office of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones at the state capitol. She also was contracted for a painting of golfer Davis Love III and his late father, Davis Love Jr.,  for the Sea Island Golf Club.

In June, she completed a large “conversation piece” mural in the lobby of Triangle Chemical headquarters in Macon. It is a colorful celebration of the company’s 78-year history.

After six years, she doesn’t have to find work. It finds her.

“A lot of it comes through the weddings,’’ she said. “When I’m working at a wedding, I might meet 200 people. I get a lot of non-wedding business from the weddings.

“I put in the work, but there are a lot of chance happenings,’’ she said. “So many times it’s meeting one person at some event or gala. And then it’s one after another after another. It always surprises me what comes next, and it’s always something I never would have guessed.’’