My paintings are filtered through my explorations of these landscapes. From climbing in the mountains to wandering in the desert, I create surreal interpretations of iconic climbing areas and vistas, recreating a landscape based upon my experience with it. From Patagonia to Yosemite, the watercolor sketches that I create on location hold the magic and a reference photo provides a framework to work within to create the final watercolor painting.
Click here to learn more about different events and publications I've been featured in over the past few years.
Excerpt from "Into Plain Air" by Beau Flemister
“What we do on the rock and in the mountains returns us to a primitive past, a past in which we reach so desperately for something we can’t even define.” Legendary climber-mountaineer Peter Croft said that. And yet, definitions aside, there are those that do a pretty exemplary job of articulating the magic that adventurers reach for. One such human is the elusive climber and artist, Rhiannon Williams, a shy hurricane of creative genius.
Often, it can be hard to find Rhiannon in the world if WiFi is not readily available. Living and creating art remotely from her van, you might find her around Yosemite, or in the deserts of Utah, or as far south as Argentinian Patagonia. Which all makes sense. She’s sailed around the Andaman and Java Seas. Began climbing in Thailand and Nepal. Learned to paint mandalas from a Nepali thangka master in Kathmandu… Indeed, there are no uninteresting chapters in the Book of Rhiannon.
Beyond becoming a talented climber, her en plein air watercolor paintings — many sketched or painted mid-climb so many stories above the earth — have become renowned works. “The mountains lend themselves to free brushstrokes that depict the energy of the moment,” she says of the process. “Sometimes, the wind whips the paint across the paper, sometimes, there are dirt smudges, etc. They are living time capsules of the adventure.”
Between said-adventures, we were lucky enough to catch her at ground-level and learn from this amazingly introspective traveler.
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