Priscilla Levesque | Bull Run

The artworks below are currently on display at the Bull Run, located in Shirley, MA.

Priscilla Levesque — Artist’s Biography

Studio: 122 Western Ave., #251, Lowell MA 01851

Priscilla Levesque grew up in Ashburnham, graduated from Oakmont Regional, and received her BFA from UMass Amherst. While living on Cape Cod, she took classes with several artists including Claude Croney, Robert Roark, Rosalie Nadeau, Paul George, and Selina Trieff.

Priscilla now lives in Lowell with her husband Steven Jacobs and paints in her studio at Western Avenue. For many years she used transparent watercolor, but now her chosen medium is casein, an opaque water-base paint that she uses on 300 lb. watercolor paper. She paints with the pointillist technique, developed by 19th-century artists including Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Small dots or “points” of paint placed close together merge into hazy, softly blended hues.

Artist Statement

I am intrigued by the relationship between buildings and their surroundings, and how light changes the appearance of brick, wood, stone, or glass. When I go walking near my home in N. Chelmsford, I watch for landscapes or houses which I can turn into an interesting compositions. Rather than paint on location, I take photos and then paint in my studio. I like this procedure because I can consider the whole composition, rather than dwelling on small details which may change quickly.

For the past several years I have used the pointillist technique, which was developed by the French painter Georges Seurat in the 1880s. He built up colors by juxtaposing tiny dots of various hues, which merge together when seen from a distance. In this technique of “optical mixing”, the color mixture occurs in the eyes rather than on the palette.

The painting medium I use is casein, which is an opaque water-base paint. The advantages are that casein dries fast, needs no special solvents and, since it is opaque, colors can be overlaid very easily. For many years I used transparent watercolor which is tricky because once an area of paint is too dark, it’s very difficult to fix. In my painting process, I often change my mind, and I find that color changes are quite easy with casein.