Qcc Artist Directory

Betty Richter

painting, watercolor

Painting the people and landscapes of northern New Mexico

Gallery

About the Art

Betty paints the people and landscapes of northern New Mexico. She has always been at home in the water, and working with water-based mediums seems natural. Though watercolor is often thought of as a very difficult medium to learn, especially without formal instruction, its transparency speaks profoundly to her soul. Her goal is to express the journey experienced throughout an adventurous life of living in many different places, and within many cultures. “Art for me is the best way to communicate the beauty and wonder seen every day.”

She used to start her works with a pencil sketch and develop very detailed and accurate imagery. Though Betty’s later works are more fluid with a new-found self-confidence. She tries to paint every day at her easel or drafting table, depending on the size of the work. Rich, vibrant color is a signature of her style. She will sometimes leave one work and start another if she feels stuck, returning to it when inspiration strikes again. Betty is close to feeling accomplished in her watercolor technique and looks forward to learning and experimenting with other water-based paints. She has been exhibited in the Taos Fall Open, and takes part annually in the Questa Art Tour.

Bio

Betty was nurtured in a family of limited means and six children. Her mother was strong, intelligent, compassionate, and while devoting her own creativity to raising her large family, she sparked an artistic nature in her six-year-old daughter one morning by drawing an amazingly lifelike picture of a horse. Betty perfected her own images of horses for years, in affordable pencil and charcoal, working on brown paper bags if she had to. She is self-taught in art, her formal studies followed a more practical, and rigorous, focus on science and math, with creativity expressed in music studies, breaking ground as the first female conductor of her school’s concert band. Betty is a former biomedical research professional.

During her long marriage, she produced no art at all, except the occasional Christmas cards. In addition to her own career, she assisted her husband in his shop where he worked after hours to produce lab equipment for immunology research. The very day she retired, she turned back to art.

Art “saved me from grief,” she says, referring to the untimely death of her partner. Rescue pets and landscaping rounded out her new lifestyle, difficult at times, but rewarding in her artistic community of compassionate, hard-working people. “It is my hope that some of passion shows in my paintings, conveying Light and Hope.”