For the past 41 years, Ellen Håkensen Faris has lived in the United States, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area. She came from her homeland of Norway to work as a Flight Attendant for Pan American Airlines. When she met her husband, to whom she was married for 37 years, she settled down and started pursuing her creative talents and getting an education in graphic design. She then founded her company Design Plus, along with raising her son and daughter.

Ellen has long been involved in the Norwegian Community in the Bay Area and was the Creative Director for the annual Norway Day Festival for many years. While working with the festival, she created large canvases of painted images displaying scenes of Norway to be used as backdrops. She also created a replica of a children's village in Norway, made out of Styrofoam. This installation now makes an annual appearance for the enjoyment of all the children visiting the Festival.

Ellen's interest in photography, use of colors and working on the computer got her started on creating digital art. After the loss of her husband in 2006 and to help ease her heartache, Ellen started to paint some of her digital art images and has now found a new passion. She is employing the same technique as she did creating the backdrops, using cotton canvases and high quality acrylic wall paint. She mixes the colors herself to get the colors she wants and the images are derived from her own photographs, transformed into graphic images on the computer and then freehand drawn and painted onto a blank canvas.

Color is very much part of Ellen's work and she has always been drawn to bright and vivid colors. Now that painting has become her main interest instead of strictly using her creativity in her business as a designer creating for others, she can freely express her love of the whole color spectrum without restrictions.

Ellen spends several months in Norway every year in her condominium at the edge of the Oslo Fjord. While there, she enjoys hiking in the mountains as well as exploring the coastline in her kayak. Being at the seaside, many of her paintings reflect the boating life of which she is very much a part.

Ellen Faris

e-mail: designplus1@mac.com
web site: www.designpluscolors.com