Erna Louw was born in Johannesburg South Africa. Erna attended school in Durban and then went on to study at Durban Teachers Training College and UNISA.
After teaching for 20 years, Erna decided to follow her passion and pursue a fulltime career as an artist. Her earlist artistic influence came from her father who was landscape artist in his spare time.
Erna studied art with artist John Smith, mainly working with pastels in the beginning and then moving onto oils. John remains her mentor and friend. Erna studied further in oils with artist Henk Vos. Erna has also attended several workshops, including the 2006 KwaZulu Natal Visual Art Judges workshop
Erna's particular passion in art is for portraits and she specialises in childrens portraits. She also enjoys people sudies, landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes and life studies. Of late, Erna has been focusing on Plein Air painting in the Western Cape and the Blyde River Canyon area
After being widowed in 2007, Erna decided to relocate to the Western Cape. She has joined several art societies in the greater Cape Town area and has exhibited with them. Erna also teaches art classes from her studio in Cape Town.
