"THE REDWOODS"

Advertisement for a Santa Cruz Art League sale, Santa Cruz Sentinel, October 31, 1947

The background wallpaper which I use for my blog comes from a drawing done my grandmother Ellen Hill,* my father's mother. She arrived in Santa Cruz in the early 1920s and soon became a member of the Santa Cruz Art League. Primarily an oil painter, she also dabbled pastels, ceramics, tiles and even lyric writing.  

Ellen was born in Colorado and raised in Western Idaho.  She began painting as a child of seven when 

"... she was intrigued by watching a young English artist who was a guest at her parents' mountain home in Idaho. Noticing the little girl's intense interest in his work, he began to teach her." 

In addition to her paintings of the redwoods, her other popular items were "the painting of miniatures in oil on the underside of watch crystals, some of them as small as half the size of a dime." My father often framed them in redwood for use as brooches and lavaliers which were sold at a gift shop on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. 

From an article in the Western Woman Magazine, circa 1940s. Note her self-portrait in the lower left.

Ellen moved to Bonny Doon in 1943 where she continued her artwork into the 1970s. She passed away at the age of 82 in 1980.

* Ellen Hill also painted under the name Ellen Herman.