About the artist:
I find transparent watercolor to be the most exciting medium to express light and color.
And I enjoy sharing my love of animals and all of nature with other people through my artwork.
Each opportunity I have to paint feels like a gift.”
Born in Duluth, Minnesota, the artist grew up in Boulder, Colorado, at the foot of the
Colorado Rockies enjoying books, music, animals, hiking and horseback riding. Growing
up in Colorado gave her a lifelong love of animals, nature, and light.
An exchange student to Japan in both high school and college, Colleen traveled extensively
in Japan, visiting rural villages famous for pottery, bamboo crafts, woodcarving, lacquerware
and other traditional handicrafts. Scholarships enabled her to study at Waseda University in
Tokyo; outside of her academic classes, she studied sumi-e (ink painting) with a traditional
teacher. After graduation from Earlham College, she moved to Seattle where she worked for
8-1/2 years at the Consulate General of Japan as a speechwriter and Administrative Assistant.
She and her husband met at the Consulate.
Since 1993, she has taken a variety of watercolor workshops and classes through Daniel Smith,
at local community centers and colleges, and in New Mexico, with artists including Elroy
Christensen, Jan Hart, Sandra Kahler, Caroline Buchanan, and Ann Breckon. The artists with
whom she’s studied most extensively, and who’ve influenced her work the most, are Jan Hart
and Sandra Kahler.
Colleen has shown her work in local juried shows including the Edmonds Arts Festival, Finnfest
USA (at the University of Washington), Arts of the Terrace (all in 1999), and ICHS in Coupeville
in 2002, where her painting was selected for inclusion in the 2003 ICHS calendar, and purchased
for the permanent collection at the Admiralty Point Lighthouse Museum. In 2005 and 2006 she’s
had paintings in a number of shows including the Annual Seattle Co-Arts’ shows, Arts of the
Terrace, and the Artists’ Connect shows in Edmonds, Washington.
Colleen Ozora currently works out of her home studio, creating watercolor paintings; doing fine
art portrait commissions; designing cards and teaching classes and workshops at Artworks in
Edmonds, Washington and Shoreline Community College in Shoreline, Washington. She draws inspiration
from the islands, animals and tulip fields of the Pacific Northwest, and from the landscape and
Native American cultures and arts of New Mexico and Colorado. From long exposure to Japanese arts,
she has an affinity for ink and finds beauty in simplicity of line and design.
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