Laurna is a self taught artist who believes that she was secretly mentored by the great watercolor artists books she owns. Whenever she had a spare moment she would be completely engulfed in one of the books.
Her love for the arts started in high school where she discovered pottery. She spent many years throwing pots and molding clays. She would frequent art galleries in great awe of the renderings of fine portraits or landscapes. She bought a drawing pad and drawing did not come easily to her. Each time she would take out her pad, she would put it back again. One day, pad in hand, she sat quietly and realized that there was an artists way of “seeing”. Fully observing all the shapes, not just of specifics like the nose, eyes or mouth, but the space and distances between them. This changed her world overnight.
Watercolors became her new love. This medium has endless possibilities in creating textures, light values and color intensities.
Before moving to Port Townsend Laurna lived raising her three children on Maui where, as her kids grew older, she was able to increase her amount of “painting time.”
Choosing a subject has never been difficult as she sees paintings every day all around her. The world stimulates her senses in special ways—- teenagers with attitude, paths that lead to choices, light playing on the side of a barn— they all have one thing in common: their ability to inspire strong emotional reaction.
Laurna always jokes that she has so many more paintings stored inside her than she has time to paint.
Laurna’s pieces have been exhibited in :
