Sheba Ross Delaney was born in Texas in 1952, spent a year and a half flunking out of Pratt Institute of Art in 1970-1971, and began a career as an editorial illustrator, working for the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Times of London, and other publications, from 1975 to the mid-nineties.

Her first exposure to art was the illustrations in books she read as a child, which made a strong impression on her. When, as an adult, she began to focus more on producing paintings than on illustration, it was natural to want to produce representational, narrative work.

She began teaching herself to paint, by reading books on classical technique and by looking at art, in the late seventies and is still evolving as a picture maker. She was represented by Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York City from 1994 until around 2000, with a one woman show at the Greene Street Gallery in 1994 and pieces included in several small museum shows, including a MOMA curated show at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts in 1995. A large Madonna hung in the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue for twenty years.