AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLIE WILSON

Written by Kim Weeks from her interview with Ellie Wilson

2/04/25


The gratification of creating original, beautiful art is often heightened by the knowledge that someone else loves your pieces and is willing to spend their money to take them home. Landscape artist Ellie Wilson felt this joy quite early in her career when selling her drawings to elementary school classmates. It was, perhaps, because of this early commercial success, or maybe because of her inspiring surroundings in Provo Canyon, Utah, that Ellie never had thoughts of another career.

 

“I had done these drawings, and then I took them to school and was showing people, and then I was like, ‘Oh, if you want one, you can buy one from me,’” she said. “That's kind of when it started. I was that young and just [thinking], ‘Oh, people like this. People like what I'm doing.’”

 

Ellie comes from a long line of painters, including her grandfather, a hobbyist landscape artist. And in an effort to continue the family legacy, Ellie’s mother enrolled her in a kids’ painting class alongside several cousins. As it turned out, Ellie was the only one to continue in the family’s footsteps and was fortunate to have the resources and encouragement from her family and her school.

 

“I had amazing teachers through junior high and high school that were super supportive of art, but also of [teaching me] how to draw from life and from observation. Which I think was huge in helping me … become a great artist,” she said. And despite incongruous recommendations from standard career aptitude tests, and also despite the uncertainty of an art career, Ellie never veered from that career path.

 

“I think I was pretty much like, ‘Yeah, I'm going to do this.’ […] And I just remember [thinking that] all of [those careers] sound horrible except for doing art. And then it was like, ‘How many people actually do art and make it?’ And I then I’m like, ‘Well, that also sounds terrifying,’” she said.

 

So, after high school and at a teacher’s recommendation, Ellie applied and was admitted to the illustration program at Brigham Young University in Provo. She said she selected that curriculum because the studio program focused more on applied skills and technique, rather than theoretical concepts.

 

“I'm really, really lucky that I was told to go the illustration way. A lot of artists start that way,” Ellie said. “[Pretty] much everything [at BYU] was working from life. It was really great. I mean, there was color theory and things, but it was very applicable to what we were doing.”

 

During her time at BYU, Ellie said she worked on a variety of subjects and was determined to break away from her family’s legacy of landscape painting but soon found that her passions and lifestyle had other plans for her. “I grew up in the mountains, wandering around outside in nature and hiking every day. I remember when I left the house when I got older, I was like, ‘Wait, I can't just hike outside every day? This is how people live? People don't get to just be outside in nature constantly?’” she said.

 

In addition, she had the example of her grandfather, who encouraged and instilled his love of art in her. And as she became more accomplished, he showed her the ultimate compliment of asking her opinion.

 

“When I was in college, I remember him talking to me, [he would ask], ‘How would you do this?’ He was so humble. [He would ask,] ‘Now, how do you think that works? Now, can you fix this for me?’ And he would let me paint on his paintings,” she said. “And I [thought] how amazing that he was like, ‘You're getting this education and you're learning these things and you know these things, and I trust the knowledge that you've gained enough to ask you questions about it and treat you in a very, I don't know, on equal footing almost.’”

 

Ellie said that her college experiences with plein air painting were also instrumental in seeing her back on her ancestral path of landscape work. 

 

“I'd worked from life so much, and then going outside and painting, it was like, ‘Wait, this is my happy place. I love being outside. I love hiking, I love being in nature.’ And then [I realized] I can do both,” she said. “And then I just was good at it. … I don't know if it was just from observing nature through my whole childhood or being around my grandpa or what. But I just picked it up quickly and was improving quickly and it just felt like really right to be outside and holding a brush.”

 

In order to graduate BYU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Ellie said all seniors were required to do a solo show of their work. Ellie’s exhibition featured two dozen paintings of varying sizes, and the result put her squarely, if a bit unexpectedly, on the path to becoming a self-supporting artist.

 

“I sold out that show. I remember it being weird, because my husband was there with me, and we were walking around and people would be like, ‘Oh, can I buy this?’ I had no expectation of people buying anything. There weren't prices written on anything. […] We were just selling it by word of mouth,” Ellie said.

 

Despite this successful ending to her college years, Ellie found herself floundering a bit after graduation, having little structure and no one giving her assignments to focus on.

 

“All of a sudden I had all this freedom and it was like, ‘Wait, what do I do when it's just me and a blank canvas and all the time in the world? What do I create?’ So, I did a lot of plein air painting. And then I started doing plein air competitions and did really well with those. And then I just started the process of starting plein air paintings and bringing those into the studio,” she said.

 

Ellie’s first professional paintings were sold in a small gallery near her home. Soon after, she accompanied her husband to Poland for six months, where she had the opportunity to paint all over Europe. She then showcased those paintings back in Utah and was then invited to participate in a small works show. In short, she was finding representation and continuing on her journey of creating art that people want to buy. That journey led her to Montana, where she spends summers with her family, and it was there that she was drawn to Montana Trails Gallery.

 

“I had been admiring the gallery for a long time because my husband's family has a cabin in West Yellowstone. [...] So I always say I'm a part-time resident of West Yellowstone,” she said. “Finally, I just walked in [to MTG], and I had my daughter with me, and I just carried in a painting of Hayden Valley, and I was just like, ‘Hey, I have this painting of Hayden Valley, do you like it? I would love to be represented in your gallery.’”

 

And soon thereafter Ellie became a valued member of the family of artists at MTG. Gallery manager Sydney Weeks said Ellie’s work demonstrates a beautiful, luminous quality and her paintings feel authentic to Montana.

 

“Ellie captures the light of each landscape so beautifully,” Sydney said. “You can just feel how much she loves what she paints.”

 

Ellie says her plein air process, while essential, remains quite simple. And she says it sets her up not only for outdoor paintings, but also informs her studio work.

 

“My plein air process is [to] set up and just go to town painting. I don't premix or anything. I don't really have time for it. Especially now that I have two kids. It's like, ‘Okay, we're just going to paint right now as fast as we can. And then sometimes it's finished, sometimes it's not,” she said. “And then my studio process varies. But it pretty much always starts with a major block-in and almost exclusively my ideas come from plein air paintings.”

 

While she understands that technique, color, and composition are often learned, Ellie says that style is innate and individual and can evolve through experimentation and play.

 

“Style comes down to the way you put the paint on the canvas. And I don't think that's something that you can forcefully change without thinking about it and having fun with it,” she said. “I've learned to just experiment and have fun with my brush strokes more. And push boundaries with, ‘Okay, what if I put this crazy purple in, what will that do?’ Or just ask those questions about what would make this painting more exciting? […] I think that's what has forced my style to change, just asking those questions and then pushing the boundaries.”

 

A mother of two young children, Ellie fully understand the challenges of trying to create art consistently while caring for her family. She has learned, though, that even the smallest amount of time is not to be wasted.

 

“I think time juggling is huge, and just realizing that you can do something with every little bit of time that you have […] You can engineer success for yourself and find ways to make things faster, even if it means going into the studio in one session and just pre-mixing and then having it all ready for the next session,” Ellie said. She has also recognized that the actual act of having a family affects her perspective, and therefore her work.

 

“I'm horrible at painting when I'm pregnant. It's like everything just looks terrible. […] If I feel terrible, then usually the paintings will show it, and I'll try it another day. Actually, funnily enough, I was walking around my studio trying to find something, and I pulled out this canvas from behind my desk. It was a painting that I started when I was pregnant and I really didn't like it. But coming back, now that I'm not pregnant, looking at it, I was like, ‘Wait, there's so much potential here.’ And I've been working on it and now I'm obsessed with it, and I love it,” she said. “The idea was there, but it was almost like I was too sick and uncomfortable to really make it look happy. I couldn't give full birth to that idea until after I'd given birth to someone else.”

 

Ellie also finds that the actual act of painting can also affect her perspective on life and allow her to feel joy where others might feel blue.

 

“My husband and I live in the mountains in a canyon in the winters. And the sun doesn't hit our house for two months. It just barely, this week, started hitting our house again. I do my studio paintings at this time of year, and I've always thought, ‘Man, I feel like I should be so depressed, because I'm just in the shadows, like no sun for these two months.’ But because I'm doing these studio paintings, I'm just painting this light and beauty and warmth. It saves me from the seasonal depression of winter here,” she said, adding that she hopes that her paintings can do the same people who see them.

 

“I hope that people just, when they see my work, can be transported to feel the connection that I feel to what I've been painting and seeing. Just the beauty,” she said. “I just painted this bright, joyous thing. And so I hope when people have my work in their homes, that can pull them up and uplift them and make them feel joy.”

 

The pursuit of this light and tranquility is, no doubt, the impetus behind Ellie’s continued success as an artist. She has embraced her surroundings and her family legacy in a brilliant way and we Montanans fully embrace her as both artist and resident.  

COPYRIGHT MONTANA TRAILS GALLERY 2025

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