Rita has been an artist since she was a child and started with pastels when she was eleven. At seventeen she made her first portrait commission, and in 1988 she started her own business drawing client portraits from photos. Despite her long familiarity with the medium, she knows that you are never really done learning. Each year she attends workshops to help her learn and experiment with new techniques.

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She is also a big advocate of daily practice. She is part of the Daily Paintworks community and posts daily on her painting blog. Rita's work and teaching relies heavily on the play of light and shadow, which she considers to be her main subject matter. She enjoys using ranch animals as her art subjects and has released two volumes of miniature animal portraits called Cows, etc. Volume 1 and Volume 2.