Elaine’s art embraces contemporary life, landscapes and portraits based on her world travels, but it all started in the loft of the home in San Diego where she grew up. As a child she lived in the home with her grandmother from Eastern Europe, and her mother who kept the house filled with music. Her uncle used the loft, where Elaine now works, as his art and design studio. Here Elaine was immersed in culture, art and music.

Listening to her mother, grandmother, and uncle speak a strange language filled her imagination with dreams of far away lands and exotic places. In the loft, her uncle taught her the magic of bringing an idea to life on paper. All the while, her mother’s music played bestowing a blending of rhythm that seemed to become part of and give life to the drawings. In the background the words of this strange language set a tone of mystery. This ambiance melted together to form one complete and inseparable blend of culture, music and art that became Elaine’s way of life.

Elaine says, “Conceptual ideas whirled in my head but I couldn’t express them until I learned to draw the figure.” Elaine attended Watts Atelier for 3 1/2 years and the Athenaeum School of the Arts, one year. In various local colleges and private workshops, Elaine studied techniques using pencil, charcoal, watercolor, acrylic and oil materials. She finds the fluidity of oil gives a rhythm to brush stroke that seems most natural. This basis lets Elaine fly free with her ideas producing her “Fresh Reflections”. Elaine also enjoys portrait and landscape painting. She says, “To narrow my work to only one type of painting would smother my creative spirit. Each day I drive from my country home to my studio, the loft of my childhood. I put on music appropriate for the rhythm of brush stroke I wish to achieve. I celebrate my freedom of expression, and I am grateful for my life’s journey so rich in creative material.”