Hello and Welcome!
My name is Lisa Elley, and as a professional artist my vision with my art is clear:
To spread joy with my happy paintings.
My name is Lisa Elley, and as a professional artist my vision with my art is clear:
To spread joy with my happy paintings.
When a collector tells me that they cried with joy when they received their painting, it fills me with appreciation. I can't quite believe that I get to pursue what I love, and to share my gift with others.
I find great purpose and meaning in inspiring people, and bringing joy to their lives with my paintings. As well as creating art, I try to evoke emotion and connection with the way people feel about my art.
I am deeply connected to the world around us, in the form of my obsession with the California landscape. I can’t stop thinking about the way the sun caresses the petals of our golden poppies, they way the cypress trees reach grotesquely toward the clouds, and the ever present rumble of the mysterious Pacific ocean.
You see, the Pacific ocean practically runs through my veins. My story starts on a little farm in New Zealand, a country where you are never more than 70 miles from the ocean. Picture a little girl with a ponytail and a cheeky smile, surrounded by rolling green hills, pristine forests, and majestic vistas that hardly seem real. My childhood was a barefoot adventure with my sketchbook in hand.
I find great purpose and meaning in inspiring people, and bringing joy to their lives with my paintings. As well as creating art, I try to evoke emotion and connection with the way people feel about my art.
I am deeply connected to the world around us, in the form of my obsession with the California landscape. I can’t stop thinking about the way the sun caresses the petals of our golden poppies, they way the cypress trees reach grotesquely toward the clouds, and the ever present rumble of the mysterious Pacific ocean.
You see, the Pacific ocean practically runs through my veins. My story starts on a little farm in New Zealand, a country where you are never more than 70 miles from the ocean. Picture a little girl with a ponytail and a cheeky smile, surrounded by rolling green hills, pristine forests, and majestic vistas that hardly seem real. My childhood was a barefoot adventure with my sketchbook in hand.
I never went to art school. Instead I chose to work and travel, educating myself with passion about other cultures, experiencing the vibrancy and color of Thailand, Australia, The United States, Mexico, Peru, and Europe.
My journey with my art ebbed and flowed, until eventually I was inspired to revisit my artistic side. As a mother with two young children, the desire for 'me-time' inspired me to enroll myself in a night-time oil painting class in Florida, under the tutelage of renowned New York artist Robert Gross.
I carefully painted still-life pieces with a little brush one night a week, under the watchful eye of my mentor. While we painted, he would regale us with colorful anecdotes about his life as a full time artist in New York in the 1960s. I would imagine his light-filled East Village brownstone loft filled with an eclectic assortment of models and artist friends, living on wine and cheese.
One evening, as he critiqued my quite good, but also quite generic landscape painting over my shoulder, he asked me if I had ever heard of the French impressionist painter Gustave Courbet. He told me how Courbet was a renegade artist who would paint a piece using only a palette knife. ‘Why would he do that?’ I asked curiously. Well, he said, ‘It builds up texture, and the texture reflects the light differently, more dramatically than a regular brush painting, it also creates a lot of movement’. I was intrigued.
The next morning I googled ‘palette knife painting’. I was immediately transfixed by the sculptural quality of the process. I got out my paints, picked up my palette knife, and from that moment on, I was absolutely obsessed with it.
You see, at the intersection of curiosity and perseverance, a spark is ignited. If that spark is nurtured, it turns into a raging inferno, and that’s how I feel about my art.
Fast forward to my life in the San Francisco Bay, now a full time, award-winning professional artist, with a large dedicated studio. I am more obsessed than ever with my process as I hone my skill and work toward being the best artistic version of myself I can possibly be, every single day. It excites me to continue to educate myself, and drive toward being a dedicated life-long painter.
I find painting with the knife to be cathartic, natural and it really reflects my playful personality. Sometimes I paint with bold, choppy strokes, using deep impasto (super thick) paint and other times my style can be more detailed, blended, refined and painterly, it depends on my subject matter. I am endlessly inspired by nature, and my biggest obsession is finding new motifs to focus on with my art, crafting a new series, refining my methodology, and channeling positive and optimistic feelings into my art, for others to experience and enjoy.
In our modern world of change and uncertainty, it gives me an amazing feeling of satisfaction to create something that people can enjoy. Also, did I mention that I hate cleaning brushes? :)
Thank you for joining me on my journey, and welcome to my world of color!
Cheers,
Lisa
PS:
One tree is planted for every sold painting.