Mentors can have an enduring impact on the work of an artist.  Monet’s Art Supplies customer, Jess Rice, is a great example of how the support and encouragement of a mentor can impact an artist, giving Jess the confidence and resolve to become an accomplished and sought-after artist and art instructor.  His passion is watercolours and he still gets "a thrill watching the paint and water collide to create amazing colours and patterns".  This passion combined with superb technique creates beautiful paintings like the one above and below.

 

Self Taught Artist

Jess Rice is a White Rock local artist who is self taught and very fortunate to have a robust art education through grade school and high school. His mother was a watercolour artist and mentored Jess in the early days of his art education. She was instrumental in Jess's art inspiration and gave him the vision that a career in art was something he could achieve. Combined with watercolour workshops over the years, from top watercolour instructors such as Ben Steele, Tony Couch,  Lian Zhen, and Joseph Wong, Jess has created his own distinctive style.

"One of the beautiful things about learning how to paint is you learn how to see, and after painting for a short amount of time you start seeing the world from a whole different perspective. "

Full Time Focus

After many years working as a graphic designer in the software industry Jess decided to focus full time on his art career.  He has been painting watercolours full time for the past 25 years.

Jess prefers the Romantic Realism style of painting, which allows him to paint a bit abstract but leaning towards realism.

"Watercolours seem to lend themselves to this style of painting. I tend to paint rather loosely, letting the watercolours do their magic while corralling them a bit to make interesting textures and colours."

Jess enjoys a wide range of subjects but his favourites are painting Plein air  where he can capture the natural beauty of landscapes and animals.  Growing up in Montana, Jess developed an appreciation for natural beauty that comes through in his paintings of mountains, streams, ocean and shorelines and local barns and farmland. He also really enjoys painting animals, his specialty being close ups of bears and roosters in all sorts of fantastic colours.  Both subjects are a fixture of local Vancouver artists and BC artists,

"Painting is a form of meditation for me, with a brush in hand the rest of the world disappears and I can get lost for hours in my paintings. Also, I am still amazed at the process of taking a blank sheet of paper and with a few brush strokes creating an image. It almost seems like magic somedays."

Jess's favourite artists are:

• Montana’s own Charley Russell,
• Vincent Van Gogh,
• Local British Columbia watercolour artist Carol Evans, 
• Colourist Jeanne Dobie and,
• Lavonne Rice-Gordon(Jess's Mom)

Favourite paintings

• Charley Russell’s Bronc to Breakfast,
• Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters,
• any local British Columbia scene from Carol Evans, and
• Ready to Dance by Lavonne Rice-Gordon.

 

A Trusted Customer of Monet’s Art Supplies

Jess Rice, our featured artist, is one of our customers. Jess is a watercolour painter and has used Tri Art watercolours in his work. https://monetsartsupplies.com/collections/tri-art-professional-watercolours . 

Tri-Art is a Canadian company manufacturing art supplies for Canadian artists. 

When asked why Jess Rice continues to buy from Monet’s Art Supplies, Jess,  replied; "Thanks to Monet’s Art Supplies I have really enjoyed being introduced to.a new watercolour brand (Tri-Art) this year. They have an easy to use website and delivery is always quick and complete. I look forward to shopping through them more."

See Jess's art or sign up for one of his classes at www.jessrice.com