Leslie Ehrin started painting at age sixteen months, in York, PA, when her mother, a Watercolorist and Art Educator, put her in the bathtub to paint on sheets of newsprint taped to the walls, and paint brushes in babyfood jars filled with tempra paint sitting on the edge of the tub.
Prior to studying Painting /Fine Art academically at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, at age 25, Leslie first graduated with undergraduate degrees in Art History and English Literature from The University of Pennsylvania. After working as an Acquisitions Editor in the Publishing Industry with Prentice-Hall Publishers, for three years, (1981-1984 ) she returned to graduate school in Philadelphia at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study Painting for four years in the Certificate Program, which later became the MFA Program at U of P. During that time at PAFA, she researched the Collection on a part time basis in the Museum of American Art at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and worked for Barbara Wallace & Associates Art Consultants, selling fine art to corporations.
After completing her studies at PAFA, Leslie managed a Native American Art Gallery in Chestnut Hill, (Philadelphia), PA. which led to her managing what was then called The Art Sales & Rental Gallery at Philadelphia Museum of Art, (now Artworks Gallery) where she developed corporate art collections for numerous companies in the Philadelphia region 1991-2000
Lois Ehrin:
As an Artist, I love to paint. I seek out the beauty and serenity that nature offers us in order to sensitize us to the everyday gentle offerings that surround us but that we often overlook. Amidst so much disregard of our natural resources, I feel a need to paint the wild places, supporting their protection by communicating their unique pristine excellence.
Traveling to new destinations, looking at new scenery, jump-starts my inspiration to paint. Memorable journeys, meeting delightful people in new and beautiful places such as the lake country in England, London at night, the charm of Cotswold’s Villages and Sweden’s Dalarna region, distant Scottish highland castles, and the unspoiled beauty of America’s western National Parks, the Canadian Rockies and Alaska’s monumental frontiers added to my wealth of familiar subjects in Pennsylvania’s hills.
On a year sabbatical from teaching, I traveled and painted in France, in the inspirational places that enticed the French impressionists. I happily sketched and painted in Van Gogh’s Arles in the spring, and Monet’s water gardens in Giverney in Normandy.
In mid-summer I traveled to Southern France, painting in rural Provence’s purple lavender and golden sunflower fields and the colorful little fishing village of Collioure– near the French Pyrenees. With my paint brushes and canvases as a source of international delightful communication, I enjoyed the best of France’s beauty and met wonderful people and was able to complete many paintings depicting France.
