Laura Coutinho’s dreamy illustrations capture the nostalgic beauty of nature

“I’ve never been someone to sketch everywhere I go,” says illustrator Laura Coutinho. Her soft and sunny drawings of outdoor scenes feel immersive, but they are in fact informed by photographs and only later turned into impressions. This image bank – of the “countless details I come across” – is a reference point for all the small details that make up Laura’s layered scenes: “Flowers, lights and colours, the shapes of mountains and trees, people’s hands and postures.”

Outside of this rich photo library, poetry, fiction and archival materials like old home movies all serve as starting points. “Something about their atmosphere always draws me in,” she shares. No wonder then, her illustrations feel like warm memories that wrap around us, whether they are our own or not. A nostalgic sensitivity to detail is a thread running all the way through the illustrator’s work, her compositions cut up by close-ups of nature’s forms and round friendly faces.

Laura uses water-based monotype printing to translate ideas of “place, nature, and narratives of kinship”, adding to the pervading feeling of nostalgia with marks that mimic childlike brushstrokes. This is part of a mixed-media approach, developed over the last few years by integrating digital elements. Whether analogue or digital, her fascination is in the natural world: “My practice is deeply rooted in nature and revolves around taking time to look and finding space to breathe,” she reflects. “I hope this offers moments of connection to anyone who comes across my work.”