A Westchase artist teaches from home but finds inspiration here and there, out and about.
By STEPHANIE HAYES, Times Staff Writer
Published November 11, 2005
[Times photos: Mike Pease]
Madison Flores, 12, listens to Virginia Larrea La Tourrette explain a point about the still life Madison was painting. Larrea LaTourrette teaches art to kids and the plein air method to adults. She plans to take a group to her native Ecuador in June for immersive plein air training.
Kylene Harrington, 10, paints during a still life class taught by Westchase artist Larrea LaTourrette.
WESTCHASE - Virginia Larrea LaTourrette's art students are at an age when the sky is a blue stripe atop the page and the sun is a yellow ball with triangle rays.
But today, they are surrounded by professional paintings in the loft of her house. They are mixing paints, creating new shades, playing with light and dark, line and form.
"Put a little bit of yellow in your highlight," Larrea LaTourrette tells 8-year-old Samantha Mitchell, who dabs at a painting of a pink ornament swaddled in green ribbon. "I call it a little bit of sunshine."
At home in Westchase, the award-winning artist is far from her native Ecuador, but she's happy. Teaching art classes from home three times a week is a relaxing break from homeschooling her two sons, Andreas, 13, and Alexander, 11.
The sunlight and greenery in Florida are nice, but they can't compare to the energy of her hometown of Guayaquil, Ecuador, she says. From Guayaquil, it's 45 minutes to the beach, two hours to the Andes. It's bright. It's hot. It's noisy.
"My mom comes and says, "You cannot hear anything here,' " she says about Florida. She flashes a wide grin, her espresso-colored hair swinging.
It's true. On her quiet street in Westchase's Kingsford neighborhood, the loudest noise is the breeze dusting leaves or a family sedan humming by. But for Larrea LaTourrette, even those mundane things can be inspiring.
The 39-year-old takes an sketch pad everywhere, because "you don't know when it's going to come." While waiting for her sons at Pasco's Crystal Springs Preserve recently, she noticed a cluster of lily pads floating on the water. By the time the boys came out, she had finished a painting.
The lily pad session was an example of plein air, an outdoor painting method at which Larrea LaTourrette excels. She won the Southeastern Pastel Society's H.K. Holbein Merit Award in the 2005 Members' Juried Exhibition. The winning painting was a palm tree scene done at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs.
Her Web site, virginialarrea-latourrette.com, lists a gaggle of awards won for pastels, oils and watercolors. Her pieces are on sale at Great Art & Frame in West Park Village, Alla Prima Fine Art in St. Petersburg and Willow Arts on Gunn Highway.
"She has focused a lot on scenes that anybody coming into the gallery might recognize, like a meadow in Tampa or a pond view or Lake Park," said Willow Arts owner Laura Metzer. "There's just so much feeling for the locality in them, and it really takes someone who has been there to capture that."
She has been there, indeed - all over Tampa Bay with her palette and box of art supplies, observing how light hits the land, transferring it to paper. She stands when she paints, moving around the piece to see it from all angles.
She has lived in Mexico and New Mexico, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture. At the time, architecture renderings were done in marker and watercolor, so she learned perspective and elevation.
In Santa Fe, she trained in watercolors under well-known artist Betty Carr, who inspired Larrea LaTourrette to invest herself in art.
"What I learned from her was to keep practicing," she said. "I just needed to sit down and do it."
Brad LaTourrette's architecture career took the family to Tampa 12 years ago. Four years ago, she started teaching art from her home and teaching plein air to a group of adults one weekend a month.
This summer, she went back to Ecuador on a three-week plein air painting trip. She came away with 12 oil and five watercolor paintings - scenes of historic houses, beaches, mountains and a river walk.
She wants others to see what she saw. Larrea LaTourrette is taking 12 adults to Ecuador in June for immersive plein air training.
"The plan is to go for five days, learn about the culture, but also paint," she said.
She's excited to get back to Ecuador, where "because we don't have the winter season, people don't get depressed by the weather."
But for now, as Florida's temperatures sink, Larrea LaTourrette is content to help her students master shading the green ribbon and imparts a little artistic food for thought.
She tells the class how a famous artist's apprentice once collected his teacher's old palettes and hung them on the wall. Even a globby palette can be a work of art, she says.
"I said it before, and I'll say it again," Samantha Mitchell says, silver braces gleaming. "Why isn't this school?"
Her sister, Jennifer Mitchell, 13, agrees.
"It's better than school."
Stephanie Hayes can be reached at 813 269-5303 or shayes@sptimes.comVIRGINIA LARREA LATOURRETTE
AGE: 39
BUSY LADY: Besides teaching art and homeschooling her sons, Larrea LaTourrette sings in two choirs and plays in a bell choir at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Carrollwood, edits a newsletter for the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society and writes an art column in the World of Westchase magazine.
PRIME PLACE TO PAINT: New Mexico. "It's so striking there. The mountains and the color of the land are totally different than here."
THE GIVER: She sometimes gives her paintings as gifts. "I have a friend who, her wedding present was one, then when their two children were born I gave them a couple of paintings. The last one I got them was a portrait of their daughter."
ART IDOLS: Dead: John Singer Sargent. "He was an incredible portrait and landscape painter." Alive: Albert Handell. "I took classes with him. He's a master painter. I want to take another class with him."
PERFECT DAY: Sunday. "I just get up, not that early, get ready for Mass and go and sing with the choir. My family is there, and we go out for coffee or something. We generally just come home and relax. Not complicated."
