About Laurene - Musings of the artist...

Why do I paint? That's simple…
because it makes my heart happy!  

Why do I create happy art?
Because it makes people smile!

I try as best I can to fill my life with the things that I love. That begins with my family and the love of my life. The calendar shows we have been together 21 years! Can that be? I can still remember the day that we met as if it was yesterday!

Our family presently includes four furkids - two cats and two dogs. All are rescues. Our cat, Emma, is the model for my Tuxedo Cat art and our Jack Russell Terrier is my interpretation of our Jackie as a young pup! Jackie could play ball all day long and never went anywhere without that yellow tennis ball. I plan to add our tiger cat Maggie to the collection sometime soon, as well as our pups Henry and Molly. I’ve also painted some of my friend’s fur and feathered kids, including the African Grey Parrot and Shiba Inu.

I take Molly and Henry for long walks in the park almost every day and we meet up with so many dog friends. This love of our pets has encouraged me to create more dog and cat art. We all say our pets are our hearts and because I so strongly believe this, I have begun placing hearts in my most recent dog, cat and bird art! Take a look and see if you can find the hearts!!

My other love is nature, especially birds and I am proud to be a Bird Nerd! I have countless nesting boxes, feeders and baths in my yard…even a heated birdbath for winter. My yard is always filled with birds and happy singing. We have our year-long birds and our migrating birds like the Orioles, Hummingbirds and Catbirds. We live on a river, so the yard is often filled with ducks, geese and Great Blue Heron! We have one pair of Mallards that nest in the yard every year. Their names are Anna and Alex and they and the dogs get along fabulously! When Henry was only a year old, I caught him jumping in the pool to be with the ducks. The ducks seemed to think nothing of this. Henry also once went up to Anna resting next to the pool and began licking her head!!! Anna let him do it! He does this all the time with Molly and the cats, but a wild duck…well living here is nothing short of magical.

When I’m not painting or birding in my yard or out on the river, I am often out on all-day birding adventures with Mass Audubon. On one such adventure, I went owl banding with several registered banders. I actually got to touch one of these magical creatures. That owl became the inspiration for my Owl art!

My other great love is photography and my favorite subjects are my pets and nature. Many of my designs were actually inspired by my photography, like my Butterflies. I always make sure to plant flowers and flowering trees that are beneficial to Butterflies and Hummingbirds. Watching the dazzling butterflies and birds drinking from the colorful flowers inspires my photography and my art.

I am drawn to creating the world around me in bold, beautiful colors. That is how I experience life and that is how I want to share it!