Born in Toledo, Ohio, Richard Ewen attended Ohio Wesleyan University where he majored in history and minored in fine art and education. In 1971 he received an MFA Degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He then moved to Los Angeles where he worked for two years printing silk screens and lithographs for master artists at Gemini, GEL, a fine art publisher and began to paint in his studio there. He has taught silk screen printing at Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, and watercolor painting at LA Community College and 8th Street Studios in Georgetown, Texas. He has held workshops and lectures in Los Angeles, Laguna Hills, California, and Georgetown, Texas. He moved to Austin, Texas in 2006. He is a member of the American Watercolor Society, the Texas Watercolor Society, and in Austin, Plein Air Austin and Austin Visual Arts Association.

Since 1993 he has spent time in France in the summer painting landscapes in the Ile de France and cityscapes in nearby Paris. He is currently painting richly colorful and intricate watercolors of the reflections in the store windows of Paris and in the Texas Hill Country. "I think of a still life painting as equivalent to a string quartet in music, and a landscape like a symphony. Combining the still life quality of the display in the store window and the cityscape reflections of the street behind the viewer creates an interesting and complex composition."

web site: www.watercolors-of-france.com