About the Artist

Nora Bushong Larimer, currently living in St. Louis, MO, grew up in a farming community in Illinois.  Nora studied at Illinois State University and Principia College and graduated with a B.A. in studio art in 1975.  Since then, she has added extensive coursework to her experience, including print-making and graduate level courses in drawing, painting, and art history.  A professional artist since 1976, she has also had her own custom framing business since 1981.  She has taught watercolor classes off and on from her various studio-galleries for 20 years, in addition to being a watercolor and oil painting instructor at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, IL.

Nora has painted on location all over the U.S. from rural and coastal Maine, to the forests of Pennsylvania, the Amish Farms of Ohio, to Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico, as well as abroad in S. E. Asia and Belize, Central America.  This broad experience has helped to shape her bold, fresh watercolors and acrylics of natural landscapes, florals, and fish.
 
Nationally recognized, Nora has won numerous awards at juried shows and festivals throughout the U.S.  Some highlights include:

1st in Watercolor,  2007, Art and Air, Webster Groves, MO
Award of Excellence in Watercolor, 2007, Highland, IL Art in the Park
Inclusion in the Texas Watercolor Society National Exhibition, 2008,
Inclusion in the Missouri Watercolor Society National Exhibition, 2006
Best of Show at the Art in the Park in Columbia, MO, 2004

A reproduction of one of her "Peach Iris" is presently included in 1800 Home Depot and other home decorating stores as a window covering.  She has enjoyed displaying in many one-person shows and exhibits as well.

Her paintings are in hundreds of private collections across the country.

Artist Statement

While painting, my goal is to depict the essence of an idea but not to copy it.   An extreme close up view of a flower, for instance, can create an exciting and interesting abstraction. Strong color is used, too, and sometimes (particularly in landscapes) those colors are not realistic to the viewer not willing to stretch his imagination.  My hope is to help the viewer to see the world around him/her with “new eyes” - to see purple in the trees, for instance, when they normally wouldn’t; to connect to their surroundings in a new way or to visually go somewhere new.  Sometimes, though, it takes them someplace old by stirring up a memory. While my flowers are painted after careful drawing and planning, the landscapes and fish are done with a more direct and spontaneous energy.  I find there’s nothing like painting on location to get this creativity flowing, and it’s not uncommon for several hours to pass by and I’m still feeling the excitement of immersing myself in my environment through the medium of applying paint to paper or canvas.