About Elizabeth

Elizabeth M. Preston, M.A., is an award-winning artist and educator who paints and teaches art in the historic “Old Stone Cellar”.

Living in St. Louis in 1972, she had an opportunity to see Van Gogh's Souvenir de Mauve in a museum exhibition and that viewing launched her career in art(see The Spiritual Significance of Artin the blog). Initially. she studied under a number of watercolorists in St. Louis, Cleveland, and Chicago, including Clarence Perkins, Robert Tacketch, Dan Stone, Florian Laughton, Lowell Ellsworth Smith, Robin Wertz, and Nancy Fortunato. Relocating to California in 1984, she pursued her fascination with color and light using a variety of media in a representational approach, with studies at various times under Mary Aslin, Gerald Brommer, Robert Burridge, Jean Carbonetti, Betty Hook, Fealing Lin, Barbara Neches, Chris Van Winkle, and Milford Zornes. Travels in Europe, New Zealand, and the Australian outback in 2004–2005 pushed her beyond representational work into a new world of abstract expression, using sculpted gesso, found objects, and multiple layers of acrylic color. In 2018, Elizabeth will celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the opening of her Claremontstudio and gallery. She is represented in Montclair, CA by Gallery SOHO. She and her husband Robert (and destiny-the-plus-sized cat) live at 4200 feet elevation in the San Gabriel mountains overlooking the Los Angeles basin.