Herbert Odd was a toolmaker, engineer and artist in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario area. He was born in Scotland and attended elementary school there until 1916. He then completed an apprenticeship, qualified for a responsible trade practice, and extended his studies at Glasgow Royal Technical College until 1928, working in the field of tool and manufacturing engineering. He came to Canada from Scotland in 1928, and moved to Kitchener in 1929.

Odd met members of the K-W Art Society in the early 1930s, moved to Montreal briefly, returned to Kitchener in 1944, and from 1946 onward made trips across Canada, the United States, Scotland, and Continental Europe, filling many sketchbooks on his journeys. He was the owner of H&O Centerless Grinding of Waterloo, Ontario and was a supporter of the K-W Symphony Orchestra, the K-W Art Gallery, and the K-W Chamber Music Society. He was a member of the K-W Art Society, the American Society for Metals, and the American Society of Tool & Manufacturing Engineers.

In 1964 Odd built a studio, and when he retired from the engineering industry in 1968 he spent an increasing amount of time on his artwork. In 1977 there was a solo exhibition of 26 of Herbert Odd's watercolours and line drawings at the Galt Library Gallery, and in 1995 the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery housed an exhibition of about 40 of his sketchbooks. His paintings reside in many private collections across Ontario, Montreal, Vancouver, Scotland, West Germany, Australia, and the United States. He died in Cambridge in 1999, at the age of 97.