Guest Instructor

Bivenne Harvey Staiger is a watercolorist and painting instructor with a special passion for birds. Her award-winning watercolor paintings, which are usually large in scale, feature primarily birdlife and other animals, as well as flowers and landscapes. She has a wonderful ability to not only express the essence of a living thing in her work but also to communicate that gift with students interested in painting. Her effervescent enthusiasm for the natural motifs she paints and for the watercolor medium is contagious. She considers her brushes as extensions of her hand, almost of her brain.  

A graduate of SUNY/Stony Brook (now Stony Brook University) on Long Island, New York, with a BFA in Fine Art, Bivenne began her artistic career as a textile designer. She created jacquards, paisleys, foulards, and other knit patterns for fabrics that were used in women’s, men’s and infant wear; Liz Claiborne, Alfred Dunner, Lands’ End, and Carter’s were among regular clients.

Today she still enjoys creating things with fabric, needlepoint and beading, but her primary focus is on painting wildlife and other animals and on teaching watercolor techniques.

Bivenne is professionally affiliated with Salmagundi Club, American Watercolor Society, American Artists’ Professional League, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Academic Artists’ Association, Connecticut Watercolor Society, North East Watercolor Society, New England Watercolor Society, and many others.

She has been honored with many awards from their distinguished juried exhibitions such as the Silver Medal from American Watercolor Society (2019). Though best known for her vibrant watercolors Bivenne is also proficient in oil, scraperboard, pastel and collage. Her artwork is widely collected and she is represented by Spectrum Art Gallery in Centerbrook, Connecticut.

Featured in Watercolor Artist magazine’s Jan/Feb 2020 issue, Bivenne and her paintings were also the cover story for Cromwell Life in October, 2018, and twice presented in iTowns, a former Sunday section of The Hartford Courant. Her instructional book, White! Light! Bright! Weaving Backgrounds With Subjects for Distinctive Watercolor Paintings is nearing completion and will be out in 2021. 

 All images © Bivenne Harvey Staiger

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Art by Bivenne Staiger