Dru Blair has come back home to the rural community in Fairfield County named after his ancestors.

On the evening April 3, you can meet him in person at the Red Tree Art Gallery at 143 S. Congress St. in Winnsboro where he will exhibit a number of his super realist airbrush paintings.

Dru grew up in the 1960s and 70s in Columbia, SC, graduating from Furman University where he had planned his undergraduate study to go into medicine, before he discovered his artistic ability and graduated in 1981 with a degree in art.

While working on his Masters at USC he spent a summer in Myrtle Beach as a t-shirt airbrush artist.

In 1988 he won the National Airbrush Excellence Award, which ushered in a wave of commercial successes. The following year his first aviation painting, "Power" became the first of three Air Force Magazine covers and remains the number one selling aviation print in the world .

Other aviation paintings followed the advent of his own publishing company, Blair Art Studios Inc., his successful airbrush art instruction school in Raleigh, NC, and, most recently, his opening of the Dru Blair art school in the National Forest at Blair, SC.

Dru Blair is an Air Force Association Life Member (1989), Honorary Member of the United States Air Force (since 1991), Army Aviation Association of America Life Member (since 1993), member of the North Carolina Association of Designers and Illustrators (since 1989), member of the Air Force Art Program (since 1991), member of the Graphic Artists Guild (since 1993), Artist Fellow member of the American Society of Aviation Artists (since 1994), and board member of the International Airbrush Association.

He has been featured in television interviews and on dozens of magazine covers. His paintings can be found in hundreds of magazine and book publications.

Commercial projects have included popular themes such as the Budweiser Bullfrogs.

He has produced a half dozen instructional videos on airbrush techniques and is a featured lecturer at the World Airbrush Exposition.

He was the official artist for Star Trek: Voyager book covers, as well as several of the other Star Trek licensees.

Read what bloggers and websurfers have written about his art:

“Airbrush artist Dru Blair is so good, he can probably paint a tunnel on a rock face and it would be so realistic you'd happily ram your car…”

“To say he is a Jedi master is an understatement.”

“The pics I have clipped here are REAL pictures of his paintings. DO your self a favor and go to his site to appreciate the true TALENT that this guys has, and teaches to others. Words alone cannot describe his gift.”

Dru’s art work can be seen at http://www.drublair.com.