“My training is in realism and my passions lay with impressionism. I think my personal style creates a balance between the two. My goal is to capture a meaningful scene and highlight the beauty of the natural world. I want the chosen scene to be a trigger for a memory of a time spent there, and make the viewer feel immersed in the local landscape.”
–Leah North
Biography
Leah has been creating art in a studio setting since she was 10 years old. She was formally trained at a local fine art studio in Bakersfield California, where she later also taught classes for the younger students while attending high school. As a teenager, she favored soft pastels and looked forward to the Via Arté Italian street painting festival every year, where she created large pastel murals with a small team of other artists.
Once she graduated high school, she had been told enough times to choose something other than being a “starving artist”. So Leah got her degree in Mechanical Engineering at California Polytechnic State University. While at the university, she focused on developing her skill with oil paints and enjoyed creating smaller paintings inspired by the beautiful coastal landscape in San Luis Obispo county. After graduation, Leah’s professional development as an engineer caused her to move between cities and states. But she ultimately moved back to beautiful California with her husband Thomas North, who is a wedding photographer.
These days she balances her interests by continuing to work as an engineer, supporting Thomas as a second photographer during weddings, live painting landscapes at reception events, and following her own heart by creating original landscapes and nature studies in her studio.
leahnorthgallery.com 