Featured Artist Laura Bethmann

Become immersed in Laura Bethmann’s beautifully detailed, larger than life watercolors of botanicals and flowers. Visit her website to see more.

 

 

You know when you’ve experienced Beauty. It’s a feeling first and then, a split second later you think, “That’s beautiful.” This intuitive, visceral experience is essential to our well-being and it’s how I choose my subjects.

 

 

I take photos and make sketches of flowering plants in my garden and in many public and private gardens.  When choosing what to create into a painting I trust an inner feeling – like a little “rush” – that tells me “this is the one.”

 

 

I have to love the subject I’ve chosen, because I’ll be devoting 100-200 hours of my life painting it!

 

 

My watercolor paintings depict nature and the huge generosity of life. I focus on flowers because they are fundamental manifestations of growth and universal symbols of beauty. To emphasize this, I enlarge them up to ten times their size.

 

 

The moons that appear in this series portray constancy; earth’s moon stabilizes the earth on its axis and is responsible for creating the seasons.

 

 

My aim is to pose a shift in the viewer’s perspective showing that earth and sky are one, and how nearly unbelievable the beauty and mystery of nature can seem when we isolate a portion of it or take it out of ordinary context.

 

 

I paint primarily with Winsor & Newton watercolors on Arches paper. I also create nature prints (an ancient technique), have had two books published about nature printing, and I teach workshops.

 

 

In 2014, I was chosen by Monmouth Museum for their annual New Jersey Emerging Artist Series and had my first solo exhibit at the museum.

 

 

My next series concentrates on intimate views of a few carefully selected North American trees, and the growth and changes they go through during the course of one year.

 

 

Want to stay current on cutting edge business articles from Artsy Shark, plus artist features, and an invitation to the next Call for Artists? Click below to sign up for our twice-monthly email. You’ll get all this plus opportunities and special offers that you can’t get anywhere else!