Elaine Badgley Arnoux was born Helen Elaine Harper in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1926 where she lived until age 11. In 1937 she and her mother moved to Whittier, California. At the age of 13 she began drawing and creating portraits of people and places she knew in Southern California, using graphite, watercolor and oil paint. Her interest in these mediums and genres has been an integral part of her lifelong art practice. In 1944 she was awarded a scholarship to Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where she studied until 1946.