Ellenie Hrones-Blagg's attraction to drawing and color came about at an early age, as her sister and she would lie on the floor and color in coloring books for hours at a time. They both began drawing from memory and from their love of animals. They were later told that their mother was also an accomplished artist of animals. Many family members on their mother’s side are also artistic.

She explored many areas of art, such as Interior Design, Floral Design, Drawing and many classes in Ceramics. She was introduced to color while attending Yuba College. She then transferred to SCU, Sacramento, where she studied with the many renowned artists/instructors from Sacramento, The Bay Area and Chicago. Artists and fellow students made the Art Department the most creative in years. The influences were bountiful. Her art was influenced by some of the great master such, as Vermeer, with focus on light and design. The impressionists like Matisse, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Her instructors had given so much encouragement and she grabbed gold nuggets from all of them.

She soon found herself developing her own style of primitivism, using color and design to create a space in time from here own world. She painted scenes using objects she collected and places where she lived. These were in colored pencil drawings, watercolor, and oil on canvas.

She began showing her art in the Sacramento Gallery arenas in many group shows. She entered several invitational-judged shows, receiving Best of Show in the Camellia festival, and California State Fair in Sacramento. She entered the 48th and 50th Annual Crocker-Kingsley Invitational. Her oil painting, “Her Web” was featured on the front cover of the Sunday edition in the “Valley Leisure” in the Sacramento Bee and The Sacramento Union. Her watercolor, “The Couch” was purchased is now in the permanent collection at the E.B. Crocker Museum in Sacramento, California.

After receiving her BA and Masters Degree from Sacramento State, she moved to Benicia, California, a great artist community with many other artists from school. Applying to Diablo Valley College, she began a teaching career part-time and full-time and taught for several years. The experience of teaching students there was inspiring. Later, she worked various jobs, but did not give up her art career. Moving back to her roots in Yuba City, she painted and worked in Interior Design. An eventual move to Oroville, California, where she still resides, found her working in a bank, starting a family and putting her art on hold. She displayed existing work at the bank and at a Yuba City gallery.

In 1990 she was diagnosed with a Retinal Degenerative Disease which would cause her to slowly lose her central vision with no color or light function and only able to see with her peripheral vision.

After attending Butte College to learn adaptive technology and computer keyboarding for the blind, she had a blind instructor teach her to use the computer. Encouraged by the department advisor to take an art class, despite her skepticism she began painting with the help of a high-tech screen at home.

Her re-involvement in art connected her with Anna Simcox, co-owner of Art, Etc. in Chico, who has shown Ellenie’s work in their gallery. She also connected with Charlie Osborn who has been reproducing her work as giclée print editions. She had a retrospective show in 2005 and sold over a dozen giclée prints plus some originals. A collection of work is displayed in the Graeagle, California gallery, The Happy Hunting Ground.

Ellenie's Tiger Painted in 2005

Her most recent work, “The Leopard,” was painted last year despite her limited vision. With technology assistance, Ellenie plans to do more paintings and to hope and dream some more!