Susan Ellis

Member since 2019

Susan Ellis studied art throughout her high school and college years, but did not begin painting with pastels until the early 1990s. Ellis has taken numerous art classes including oil, collage, drawing and theory over the past twenty years, but soft pastels emerged as her preferred medium and passion. 

Living in the Washington, D.C. area for thirty years, Ellis undertook an ambitious, self guided education at the Art League of Alexandria (VA). Her painting increasingly focussed on painting still life and figures with contemporary realism and expressive color while under the tutelage of teachers including Danni Dawson, Dianne Tesler and Robert Liberace.  Ellis also honed her painting skills at workshops around the country led by notable pastelists including Sally Strand, Liz Hayward Sullivan, Alan Flattman and Tony Allain. 

In 2015, Ellis moved “home” to Massachusetts and settled on the picturesque North Shore. To her delight, a new artistic passion quickly revealed itself as she observed clam diggers working on the local mud flats. “I was instantly captivated by the contrast between the gritty reality of the clammer’s physical labor and the extraordinary beauty of the tidal landscape. Sand, rocks, salt hay, broken shells and muddy boots set in the context of expansive ocean horizons and the changing coastal light is magical and inspirational.” There is a rich tradition and history associated with clamming on Massachusetts’s North Shore and Ellis hopes to contribute to it by portraying both the harsh reality and the beauty of this way of life.

Ellis’s paintings have been exhibited at juried shows along the east coast for years and have won numerous awards. She has a Master’s Circle Designation from IAPS. She is also a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America, Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod, Pastel Society of New Hampshire, Connecticut Pastel Society, North Shore Arts Association, and the Newburyport Art Association, Rockport Art Association &Museum, and sells her paintings in galleries and stores in Newburyport, Essex and Ipswich.

A brief list of recent awards are as follows:
2020 1st Place Dakota Arts International Pastel Competition- Fall Quarter, Seattle ,WA
2020 Myotok Frame Award, RAA&M National Show, MA
2020 2nd Place Member Show, Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod,MA
2020 Wholesale Frame Award, Pastel Society of America, National Exhibition, NY
2020 Stone Family Memorial Award, RAA&M, MA
2020 Acheived/Awarded Master Circle Status with International Assoc.Pastel Societies
2020 Pastel Painter of Maine Award, NH Pastel National Juried Exhibition, NH
2020 Image Selected for Cover of IAPS Magazine Issue- World wide
2020 Terry Ludwig Pastels Award, PPSCC National Exhibition, MA
2020 Founder’s Award, CPS National Exhibition, CT
2020 Armadillo Award, CMPS National Exhibition, MA.
2019 1st Place PPSCC Member’s Open Exhibition, MA
2019 Best Pastel- 22nd Annual Regional Juried Show- Newburyport, MA.
2019 Paul Strisik Memorial Award Excellence in Landscape/Sea, Gloucester, MA.
2019 Award of Honor- 3rd place, PPSCC National Juried Show- Cape Cod, MA.