Artist Rebecca Bridges Rice grew up in a creative home in a small Texas town in the 60's. Her parents met in college as art students and the love of art was always a part of her environment growing up.
Education
In high school, she was awarded a summer study scholarship at University of Kansas—Midwestern Music and Art Camp in Lawrence, Kansas. Their international faculty exposed her to diverse styles of painting, sculpture and 3D design. She completed her Associate In Arts degree from Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri and then also graduated in commercial art at Regal School of Art in Houston, Texas. She later attended the Art Institute of Houston's computer graphics program specifically designed for working professional designers to get her computer graphics training.
Bridges Rice supported her art as a freelance designer, working for ad agencies and corporate clients doing illustration and graphic design. Freelancing for 12 years gave her the flexibility to take painting classes and workshops with local teachers as well as artists traveling to the area for watercolor and oil workshops. These instructors included Zoltan Zabo, Marge Brichler, Harold Phenix, Jose' Perez, Lajos Markos, Charles Reid, Edgar Whitney, Robert E. Wood and Mario Cooper.
In recent years, she has traveled to national and international locations to study with master painters such as Scott Burdick, Huihan Liu, Joseph Zbukvic, Gregg Kreutz, Guido Frick, Carolyn Anderson, Ken Auster and others. Workshops are a part of her ongoing art study. "To study with artists whose work I love is so inspiring and I love meeting other artists," she says.
Art Publishing
As a graphic designer, she produced award-winning corporate publications for clients such as Exxon, Transco (now Williams), Dresser Industries and Tenneco Oil (now ChevronTexaco). Over three years as Creative Director for Southwest Art Magazine in the late '80s & early 90's allowed her to combine her magazine design experience with her love of fine art. Later, in the early '90's she joined the staff of Somerset House Publishing, as Director of Product Development. She produced limited edition prints for nationally-known artists such as L. Gordon, Scott Burdick, Sue Lyon, G.Harvey, Michael Atkinson, Nancy Glazier, Larry Dyke, Tom DuBois and others. Some of the artists she met in the publishing business are still her artist-mentors today.
In the mid 80's, Bridges-Rice taught painting and drawing with the continuing education department at The University of Houston, The Woodlands Campus where she lived at that time.
She was represented by Phillips Gallery and Chapman Starr Fine Art Consultants in Houston at that time (mid '80's), painting mostly abstract non-objective paintings. She has murals in the permanent collections of Dresser Industries and Sheraton Hotels.
Finally painting full-time
After 30 years working as a graphic designer, Bridges-Rice moved to the Texas coast to pursue her lifelong desire to paint full-time. She works mostly in oils now, but a lot of her early study was in watercolor. She occasionally still paints in watercolor, but oils are her favorite. Both are a constant challenge. Working from life on location is her preference, but working in the studio allows her more time to develop larger paintings. She keeps her camera with her to catch photo reference for later when she is not able to paint en plein air or from a live model.
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