Janis Lacey Ellison is a native Californian and a signature pastel artist who specializes in landscape painting. She has been an artist for more than 20 years. The last 11 years she has worked exclusively in Pastels and has developed an evolving style that captures the essence and the beauty of Nature.

 Signature to Janis’s landscapes are the skies. Light reveals the landscape moment by moment. It is unmistakable in Janis’s paintings that the sky presents the landscape as only nature herself can.  Janis portrays the landscape with a focus on composition, shape, light and shadow while representing her subject in the style of representational realism. She paints Plein air and in the studio isolating the passion and presence of nature profoundly and completely.

Janis recently was awarded First Place and People’s Choice Award in “Reno’s Biggest Little Plein-Air Paint-Out Quick Draw Competition on July 23, 2005. The invited professional and internationally renowned painters selected as jurors included Ralph Waterhouse, Gil Dellinger, Jean LeGassick, Frank LaLumia, Craig Mitchell, Charles Muench and others. Janis received the Pastel Journal Award in the Pastel Society of New Mexico’s 2005 International pastel show with her painting, “Lupine Wins”. Janis’s paintings have also been published in The Pastel Artists International” magazine (July/Aug 2002).She has won numerous prestigious awards in local, regional, national and international shows. Janis is a signature member of the Pastel Society of New Mexico and Sierra Pastel Society. She is represented by galleries in the Bay Area and Sacramento valley.

 Pastel Painting is offered in both the classroom and on an individual private basis in her studio in Nevada County in Northern California. She shares her knowledge, skills, techniques, and passion for Pastel painting with her students (at all levels). Her classes fill quickly as her reputation in teaching is based on over 15 years of credentialed teaching experience.  She will soon be offering workshops throughout the U.S.

She has studied with many of the Pastel Masters: Albert Handell, Richard MacDaniel, Clark Mitchell, Reif Erikson and Bob Rohm. Janis is a signature member in Pastel Society of New Mexico and Sierra Pastel Society. She is an active member in APOW (Associated Pastelists on the Web), Pastel Society of the West Coast and the Pastel Society of New Mexico.