- Hello, I'm Beth MacMillan and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS".

Let's explore the artistry of Rhiannon Wolfe, an artist whose love for nature and animals shines through each piece.

Using watercolor and colored pencils, she brings life to her subjects with vibrant, unexpected colors that still feel naturally connected to the world around them.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) (light upbeat music) - My name is Rhiannon Wolfe, and I am a local watercolor artist.

I like to make my art quite colorful.

I just love colors.

I find myself very drawn to the color purple.

Quite often I'll go to a painting and be like, "All right, no color purple in this painting."

But it often comes through and you'll notice that.

My ideas stem from going out into nature and being out in the beauty of the natural world, just seeing the changes in the weather, the moods, the storms.

Sometimes I'll play an air paint, or see a cute animal running by and be like, "Oh, I need to paint a squirrel now", or something like that.

I like to do kind of realistic paintings, but also with the sense of whimsy.

Like something that you'll have to double take and be like, "What?

There's a hedgehog and a spaceship going to outer space."

Like, quite often I'll be at a farmer's market or something with my art and I'll hear somebody giggling and somebody else, and I'll have to ask, like, "Okay, what image was it that elicited that emotion?"

(light upbeat music) I've always been interested in art.

(light string music) My background is actually in ancient and medieval history, and I decided to try and meld my historical learning with art.

And I took a course in Vienna at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art, and this was a course with Aloria Weaver and David Heskin in painting like the old masters.

We spent three months painting two paintings.

One was an egg tempera and the other was an oil painting, and they were both self portraits, but one of them, the egg tempera, was reversed.

So it was quite interesting painting your face, but backwards.

So recently, I have chosen watercolor as my medium.

I took a solo road trip to New Mexico.

And I drove all the way from Reno to New Mexico and I brought my watercolor paints along with me.

And I was visiting all these national parks and exploring and out in nature, and watercolor paints were really great for traveling.

They're small and compact.

The first ever event I did, I didn't have any prints or anything.

And I was just sitting there, live painting, and somebody would come up to me and be like, "Hey, can you paint a giraffe for me," or "Can you paint my pet?"

And so I was just sitting there and painting frantically, like, "Oh, here you go."

One day I'd like to go back to oil painting once I'm more established and have a studio and more grounded.

But, right now, watercolor really works.

(bright music) With my watercolor painting, I'm actually quite precise.

A lot of watercolor artists, you know, paint wet on wet and really let the paint flow.

But I found myself, like maybe it's from learning to paint with egg tempera, but I really like to do small brush strokes, sometimes layer upon layer in fine detail.

It's really important to me to keep the colors vibrant and vibrating with each other.

I start with thin washes, and then gradually build up the detail over time.

Sometimes it can take a long time just building layer upon layer, and you've got to really think about the colors that you're layering so it doesn't turn into mud.

Through my artwork, I hope to show people that animals have feelings and thoughts and emotions just like we do, and that there's such beauty in the natural world.

And I've been vegan most of my life, so this is something that's really close to my heart.

It's really important for me to be in a good mindset and head space to create.

And then, the creative energies can really flow.

And a beautiful day like this, where the sun is shining, I find very inspiring.

(bright music) (geese honking) - [Announcer] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by: Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors; Heidemarie Rochlin; In memory of Sue McDowell; and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(light upbeat music) (lively music) (lively music continues)