Ellen Fountain - TDS faculty

Ellen Fountain
B.F.A., M.A.

I am a juried signature member of the National Watercolor Society (N.W.S.), The Western Federation of Watercolor Societies, Watercolor West and the Arizona Watercolor Association, and have been focusing on water media painting since getting my masters degree from the University of Arizona in 1974. Since the 1990's, I have also been creating digital paintings which I produce as one-of-a-kind or small editions of archival inkjet (giclée) prints.

I have extensive teaching experience (25+ years), including five years in the Artist-in-Residence program through the Arizona Commission on the Arts. I taught watercolor for many years at the now-defunct Tucson Art Institute, and have taught workshops and classes locally and nationally for various watercolor organizations. I've produced a 5-volume video series for beginning watercolor painters, and have published several articles in various watercolor magazines. My website (www.fountainstudio.com) has an entire section devoted to watercolor instruction and painting tips as well as a gallery of my work. I've received a T/PAC Artist Fellowship award, and in 2003 was delighted to be chosen to paint one of the ponies for the Ponies del Pueblo project, with my pony ultimately going to the town of Marana.

Watercolor is a hugely popular medium. There are two magazines in the United States alone that are solely devoted to waterbased mediums (transparent watercolor, gouache, acrylic, ink, etc.). The scores of watercolor exhibitions held annually in the US have helped promote this versatile medium that requires a minimum of tools (water, paper, brush, pigment), but that with practice can express every art style from tightly rendered photo realism to loose, spontaneous non-objective works. My students are always encouraged to find their own expression, whether confined to purely transparent watercolor or mixed water-medium works.

Learning to get paint on paper with assurance (through brushwork and washes), mix color predictably, and understand how paper surfaces and pigment qualities affect the appearance of paint on paper are, I believe, essential transparent watercolor skills. Once students are comfortable with these basics, it is much easier for them to move on to a more expressive level of watercolor painting. Like drawing, the basics of watercolor can be learned and improved upon with regular practice. There are no shortcuts, but the practice is rewarding, meditative and progressive.

Ellen Fountain B.F.A., M.A.

Ellen Fountain
B.F.A., M.A.