Colleen Gnos is best known on the central coast of California for her gold-scaled mermaids painted on surfboards or her idyllic scenes of surfers and breaking waves. Stories of her Portuguese grandfather running a tugboat out of Avila Beach, California, diving for abalone, and training navy divers in the 1930s contributed deeply to Colleen’s fascination with the sea. In the last few decades, Colleen has illustrated surfboards for renowned surfers and board shapers, and has shown her paintings across the United States and Italy. She has completed over 100 original painting commissions for private collectors.
