MEDIUM watercolored pen & inks, pen & ink sketches
FEATURED WORK
(Click to enlarge image)
WEBSITE linneawrhodes.com
STATEMENT
I think of my work as a personal approach to realism. I enjoy depicting landscapes, cityscapes, architectural details, and botanicals. I generally choose my subject matter from local scenes and from my travels abroad. I take a sketch book and do quick ink sketches as I am traveling. The local scenes of Westfield, Cranford and Summit and views of Fire Island, the Berkshires and New England generally start as photographs. I work from my pen and ink sketches or the digital images I have taken with my camera. I started working in oils, but recently my main focus has been on my watercolored pen and inks.
I begin a watercolored pen and ink with a line drawing in ink. Next I add the watercolors to define contour, dimension, and the season and time of day. I love exploring the influence of light and shadow on color. For me, a favorite detail in my work might be a small glowing triangle of color or a shadow created by the sun on a perfect day
The immediacy of watercolored pen and inks has helped me combine my love for intricate detail with a freer more gestural feeling. On first look my paintings appear very precise, but upon closer inspection every line is a little askew and the colors are intensified to evoke the feel of a location. If someone says to me, “your painting reminds me of how I felt when I was there” I know I have been successful.
BIO/CV
Linnea W. Rhodes majored in art with a concentration in printmaking at Douglass College. After college she worked as the assistant to the Director of Art at Norcross Greeting Cards in New York City. In the 1970’s and 80’s, while raising her family, she started a business doing fine line renderings of homes in Westfield, New Jersey.
Rhodes started showing and selling her paintings in 2005 when she joined the Contemporary Art Group. She has participated in over fifty group shows at more than twenty venues in New Jersey and New York. Rhodes has had eleven solo shows in New York, Massachusetts, and at five venues in New Jersey. In 2008 Linnea was chosen to paint a violin for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s fundraiser “Art Strings,” and in 2009 a number of her original paintings were featured on the online website ArtQuiver. Two of her paintings received recognition at group shows in 2008 and 2012 with the Westfield Art Association. She has served as co-president and president of the CAG from 2009 to 2014.
Linnea W. Rhodes is represented by The Artist Framer in Cranford where her current originals, limited edition prints, and note cards are on sale. Her note cards and/or limited edition prints are also on sale at: The Town Book Store in Westfield, The Teapot Gift and Gourmet Shop and Paperfolio in Summit, the Harbor Store in Davis Park, Fire Island, Cougar Headquarters in Cranford, Varsity Central in Mountainside, and the Old Mill Studio in Whitefield, NH.