Nora Gross, who works with watercolours, finds her inspiration from light and how it affects the landscape, a floral bouquet, or anything that catches her eye. Originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she was the youngest child of 7, who were almost all delivered by their grandmother, the town midwife and often doctor. Nora remembers always drawing and doing other artwork as a child, and later took classes and worked with oil paints. However, when she was moving in 1976, her moving van containing all her oil paints was stolen; it was three years before she could afford to purchase the oil paints again. Though her ego suffered, she borrowed a watercolour book and taught herself that medium loving the effects she can achieve.
She is one of the original artists at Art 1274 Hollis. Nora does a lot of photography and uses the photos to paint from. Though not a photo realist, she likes to keep it realistic with perhaps some abstraction of facts. Her paintings have lots of bright colours, and she feels they are descriptive of life as it is. She also started working with acrylic as she feels there is always something new to learn. Nora was elected to the CSPWC (Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour) in 2005 and just retired in 2020 from the Directorship of the Atlantic Region.
