How to go
What: “Trees Squared” by Jane Phillippi, a permanent/evolving display
Where: The Fine Art Center, 101 E. Alex Bell, Suite 156, Centerville
Hours: Noon to 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays
More info: 937-293-5381 or www.thefineartcenter.org
“Snow Falling on Cedars” would be a good title for one of Jane Phillippi’s paintings. The Centerville artist has an unusual process when it comes to her watercolors.
She doesn’t mind if a little snow drifts down to cover her paintings. The Fine Art Center member has a permanent spot inside the gallery at Cross Pointe Center, and she’s currently showing landscapes and her “Trees Squared” series.
She takes watercolor paper and covers it with a watercolor wash, places it on a cookie sheet and puts it outside on her balcony. She puts the paintings outside when it is snowing, and she hopes that it freezes.
“Then I bring it in, knock the snow off, and see what I have. I like spontaneity; I’m not a pre-planning type of person,” said Phillippi. “You can see different things in them, and choose the ones you want.”
The effect of the snowy weather adds splattered textured patterns to her painted paper. She’ll use that paper as a start for a landscape, or cut it into geometric shapes for a collage on a black background for her “Trees Squared” series. She’s created 18 of those so far.
She said she got the idea from reading about it somewhere else. The first few she tried turned out well, so she was encouraged to continue the process. She’s been watching the winter weather for ideal “snow painting” days for the past two years.
Her favorite subjects are trees.
“Watermedia collage expresses the delight and wonder I find in nature,” Phillippi said. “I am inspired by trees, especially in the winter months when the leaves have fallen and the bare branches are visible.”
The vibrant colored geometric shapes that surround these bare branches put a contemporary twist on her landscape images.
Phillippi was an art teacher with Dayton Public Schools for 26 years. Directly after her retirement, she joined the Dayton Art Institute as a volunteer docent for 16 years. Now she’s taking the time for her own creative endeavors.
“I didn’t take painting in college because it was during the expressionist time. They were just throwing paint, shaving their heads and doing all sorts of crazy things,” Phillippi said. “But I starting taking painting classes again when I was studying for my master’s.”
She has a bachelor of fine arts from Indiana University, and a master of education from Wright State University. She’s won two honorable mentions in two Western Ohio Watercolor exhibits, and participated in 26 juried invitational and group shows. Besides TFAC, she’s a member of Western Ohio Watercolor Society, TriArt, and the Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors.
Phillippi has studied with Raymond Must, George Rickey, Evelyn Gertrude James and Fred Betz, among others. She also makes notecards from her paintings and takes commissions to create pet portraits.
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