Ron Elstad

Biography

Following as a lifetime resident of California, a noted career as a Commercial Illustrator and the transformation to a celebrated America Artist, Ron Elstad made the move to New Mexico. A resident of Santa Fe, Elstad considers himself a Colorist in the pure sense, with Impressionistic painting intentions. Like many painters before him, the light and landscapes of the American Southwest, along with the casually slower life style drew this remarkable artist to the area.

Focused during his Fine Art career, Colorist Ron Elstad depicted more impressionist landscapes of California and the western areas of the country. His bold colorist strokes of thick selected colors became his hallmark as one of the best painters of the region. Largely a self taught fine art painter, following his dozen years as an Illustrator, Elstad was an accepted follow artist of many groups on top California painters, including the California Art Club.

The Taos Gallery, Scottsdale describes his career as: A member of the Oil Painters of America and the California Art Club, Elstad has enjoyed numerous awards including the Bronze Medal in the Art of California Discovery Awards. Elstad is acclaimed for his representational and "colorfully loose, yet controlled" style of "plein aire" painting for which he has collectors throughout the United States. A noted collector is Joan Irvine Smith of Southern California.

The artist uses pure color and avoids blacks and browns because he does not want his work to look dark or "muddy." He works with brushes and palette knives, which he ladens heavily with paint to create a heavy impasto effect. His technique is to add colors with single directional strokes, concentrating on one area at a time. Often he mixes his colors on the canvas by brushing them into each other.

Elstad credits his style to American impressionists, particularly those painters of early twentieth-century Southern California including Carl Oscar Borg, Hanson Puthuff, Edgar Payne and William Wendt.

As one of the group that revived the California Art Club, founded in 1909, Elstad expresses his commitment to preserving, not only the traditions, but the quality of brush work and color of those preceding impressionists. In Southwest Art magazine, February 1995, Elstad and his peers were described as the "New Generation of California artists bonded by a reverence for the pure, spiritual beauty of nature. Like their predecessors, who were among our first environmentalists, todays artists are inspired by the light and shadow and the unique color palette found in Californias endless supply of natural subjects."