Lynne Bonetti-Watercolorist Supreme

By Joni Johnson

How do you become a watercolorist?  I’m starting a course with Olli in my seventies.  On the other hand, Lynne Bonetti loved drawing since childhood.  Her parents gave her herfirst set of pastels when she was ten.  It’s interesting how life has a way of returning you to your loves.  Lynne was born in Los Angeles and spent much of her early life in Westwood and then Burbank where she went to Burbank High.  In those days, Burbank still had fields to run through and to draw.  An interest in Interior Design brought her first to CSU Northridge and then UCLA where she fell in love with watercolor. However,  a marriage which brought her two children and a fairly conventional life of the times (if you put gourmet cooking and piloting in that category) proved to include a hiatus in her artwork.  

Lynne became single again and moved to Valencia, CA where she worked in new home sales, met her true love and soon to be new husband, Rick. Living first in Scottsdale, AZ, then in Saratoga and Los Gatos, California,  she began painting  again and volunteered at Montalvo Art Center, a non-profit center. Since then, Lynne has studied with nationally known watercolor artists Charles Reid, Dale Laitinen, Mark Mehaffey, Kay Duffy, Mary Deloyt-Arendt, Don Getz, Jerry Stitt, Mike Bailey and Birgit O’Connor.

She and her husband Rick built a home and moved to Redding in 2011 to be closer to family members who reside in Redding, Chico and Ashland, OR. In 2018, they found RVM where they have resided for almost 2 years. They have been married 38 years.  Lynne and Rick have a blended family – four children, six grandchildren, and five great grandchildren.

What does she love about  watercolor.  She says that it is the luminosity, transparency and the fun of doing plain air.  Here is just a smattering of her watercolor work.  Enjoy!

 If you click twice on a picture, it will bring it into view separately and you can toggle from one to the next.