Sheila O'Neil Clough was born in Boston, MA the daughter of an art educator and granddaughter of a Boston artist, her talent was recognized encouraged and developed early. Formal training began when, at the age of nine, she was enrolled in Saturday classes at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA, which she continued throughout her childhood. Clough attended Massachusetts College of Art, where she earned a BFA with a concentration in Fashion Design and Illustration.

After college, Clough worked as a free-lance illustrator and a commercial artist in Boston before beginning a forty-year career as an art educator in Massachusetts and Maine. More than three decades as a secondary school art educator teaching a wide variety of classes from printmaking and clay to painting, drawing, design and AP Art have added both depth and skill to her personal artistic vocabulary. While the work of artist Sheila O’Neil Clough includes many genres her roots in illustration are clearly evident in the majority of her pieces. A versatile artist who was classically trained in a wide variety of mediums, she has worked almost exclusively in water media, both watercolor and acrylic, for the past two decades. Subject matter, selected form her native New England environment, is portrayed with dynamic composition, a masterful use of color and value as well as a fine attention to detail.