Manassas Journal Messenger | Art students show works in Manassas
More than 50 area art students of Patty McMahon Rice will have their artwork showcased at ArtBeat Gallery in Manassas through Sunday.
The students range in age from eight years old to adult.
A portrait artist, Rice has been mentoring art students since 1994 in her New Baltimore studio. She teaches about 130 students in small classes each week.
Focusing on children between the ages of 8 and 18, Rice encourages each student to master good draftsmanship, composition and color theory.
Believing that anyone can be taught to draw and that good materials are half the battle, she stocks a wide range of media in her studio.
Her students work in pencil, charcoal, watercolor, pastel, colored pencil, ink pen, linoleum block printing and scratchboard.
The students’ interests dictate their projects, with some focusing on landscape or equestrian scenes, other wildlife or portraiture.
Rice’s students have won many local as well as national competitions. This past year a number of her students entered their congressional district’s high school art competition. Her students won first place in three congressional districts and as a result have their art hanging in the Capitol Building this year.
A number of others received second places and honorable mentions. Several of these winners will have art on display this week. A number of the students began taking commissions as teenagers and have gone on to major in art or art related fields.
Rice is a member of the Portrait Society of America, the Piedmont Art League and the ArtBeat, local artist co-op and gallery.
“ArtBeat in Old Town Manassas is displaying this show to promote these future artists in the community. Some of them will have their work for sale during the show. The students are a remarkable group, coming from public, private and home school and this show will give them some recognition for their amazing work,” said Rice.