As a young mother looking to launch a professional art career in the late 1990s, D. Eleinne Basa did what most people would do: She sought advice from the Internet.

“A lot of the advice on the web was the same: Join a local painting group,” she says. “So I looked for a group.”

Basa, who was born and raised in the Philippines, had moved to New Jersey with her husband in 1994, so he could pursue a job opportunity. She had studied art since she was a child and always knew that someday she would become an artist. But, not long after moving to the United States, the couple started their family. Between the lack of space in their one-bedroom apartment and the demands of raising two young children, there was little room for art in Basa’s life.

Then they moved to a house with space for a studio, eventually her son and daughter both started school—and she was ready to work.

She found a plein air painting group near her home in Jackson Township, New Jersey, that met to paint outside every Monday. She loved the opportunity to be with other artists and to dedicate time to her art. And she appreciated the guidance she received from other members of the group.

Elienna Basa

Warm Reflections
Oil
20″x36″

“This is a painting partly made from a study of a scene I saw while driving by a farm in Montana and partly from the lighting effect of the setting sun on the wet, icy road from another farm. The warm reflections on the road, in contrast to the cold winter setting, immediately compelled me to create a painting based on this idea.”

Elienna Basa

Morning Calm
Oil
20″x30″

“Winter creek is always beautiful. I love creating paintings from my imagination, where I try to bring out memories of scenes of dramatic lighting that I have observed, like misty water on a cold winter morning sunrise. This is a painting from imagination, where I combined a lighting effect I had observed and remembered and a plein air study I did of a river in Teton National Park.”