Driving home from Omaha one day, Mary Lou Wright came upon a huge cloud in the east. The sun was shining just right to create a fantastic array of colors.

“I took pictures and went home and painted it,” Wright says. “It is called ‘After the Storm.'”

That wouldn’t be the first time Wright has used her camera to help her remember what a perfect setting or landscape scene looked like. On a trip to Boulder, Colo., with her sister, they took tons of pictures, Wright says.

“When you are out in the field, it is hard to zoom in on what is really important,” Wright says. When she returned home, she was able to leave things out and do some fine-tuning.

Wright exhibited her watercolor paintings at the Memorial Union Gallery a couple years ago and will be doing so again, starting Sunday and running through Aug. 9. A reception will be held from 2-4 p.m. Sunday.

Although some artists do abstract painting and others use the human figure to gain inspiration, Wright has learned during the past 40 years that nature, buildings in nature, and natural rocks and streams are definitely worth her time.

Letitia Kenemer, arts program adviser for the Memorial Union, has known Wright for a number of years and says her work is always very well received.

“I think people from Iowa identify with the landscape and seasons she paints,” Kenemer says. “She has a good connection with the Ames and Iowa State community.”

Kenemer says that Wright resists the urge to rock the boat. This is one of the reasons that Kenemer says she enjoys working with Wright.

“She’s not out there to be controversial,” Kenemer says. “She is out there to create beautiful paintings, and there is something refreshing about that.”

To keep up-to-date with new techniques, Wright participates in workshops all over the United States. Last summer, she was in Maine, and this summer she is eagerly awaiting a trip to California.

The paintings that will be exhibited at the Memorial Union show her latest styles. Most are paintings of woodland paths and serene rivers and streams.

“That is what I am attracted to right now,” Wright says.

A workshop in Illinois two years ago is what inspired Wright to change her style.

“They asked 15 artists from all over the country to paint the farms and country side in Illinois,” she says. “For years, all I did was barns.”

Interacting with people viewing her work, and the feedback that generates there are what Wright enjoys most about exhibiting.

“It is rewarding to see all my work,” Wright says.

Wright says her basement studio is her getaway. Some weeks Wright says she will be on a roll and will complete two paintings; other days she may not paint at all. This week has been used to recuperate from the trip to Colorado and to prepare for the exhibit, she says.

With 40-some years under her belt, Wright says she never stops learning and trying new things in her watercolor paintings.

“You have to keep at it,” Wright says, “and keep growing.”