Artists featured at Holy Name parish house

Artist Rita Eddy works on her floral acrylic painting at her home. STAFF PHOTOS/PAT FARNELLI

By PAT FARNELLI

Artists Rita Eddy and Chris Lathrop will be demonstrating and showing their work as part of the Fourteenth Annual Artists’ Open House Weekend.

Eddy, who lives between Birchardsville and St. Joseph on Route 267, and Lathrop will be engaged in their art at the Holy Name of Mary Parish House on Route 29 in Montrose during the artist’s tour.

Eddy began painting in watercolors, but now says that pastels are her favorite. “If you can do watercolor, you can do anything.”

She will be demonstrating in pastels, but also works in acrylics, and depicts a “complete variety of subject matter.”

Since she travels extensively, she is beginning a series on African subjects, particularly animals. She travelled in Africa, particularly Kenya and Libya, in March this year.

She previously did series of artworks exploring trees and water in natural settings.

“I don’t like to do portraits or still lifes,” she said. She began painting in the late 1980s, but has much more time over the last 11 years since she retired.

Eddy has studied for years with watercolorist and Plein Air painter Sue Hand at her studio in Dallas, PA.

She chose the Parish House location because her home is out of the way, and because she is actively involved in the church’s ministry and enjoys the pleasant, well lit rooms of the Victorian building. She says that her sales during the annual tour and other events help keep her in supplies.

Lathrop began painting in watercolors in 1993, and found that art could be a relaxing, fascinating way to explore her surroundings.

She started with a local watercolor class, but has tried her hand at acrylics as well. During the Artist’s Open House Weekend, Lathrop will be demonstrating acrylic painting, using a watercolor she previously finished as her subject.

That project, a dark window with a broken corner framing a tiny field mouse, was composed from several photographs.

Lathrop is the unofficial leader of a Tuesday morning painting group at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Montrose. She is teaching an acrylic painting course at the Montrose Adult School  this fall. Her work is displayed at the Montrose Country Store, and will be available for browsing as well as purchase during the Open House tour.

In addition to the tour of 24 artists this weekend, she is also part of Hill Country Artists. She studies under watercolorist Sue Hand in Dallas, PA.

Lathrop lives in Rush Township with her husband Dick. She has four children and four grandchildren, and travels extensively, which gives her plenty of inspiration.

“Recently, I have been travelling in the southwestern states, especially Texas, and I’ve been working on a series of animal paintings,” she said.

She recently finished an acrylic of a baby elk she photographed in Alaska.

The tour is free, and will be held Oct. 9, 10 and 11, with all studios open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information about the Artists’ Open House Weekend, the 24 artists featured on the tour and a printable tour map, visit www.artiststour.com