Three CVA-member artists — Phyllis McKinney, Mary Frances Peca and Janet Williams — will display their works during February and March at the Riverside Café, 801 N. Main St. in Farmville.

As a child, Phyllis McKinney always wanted to be an artist. Her elementary school teachers often asked her to draw pictures for boards or displays, and she loved it. She received an art education degree at Hampton University and an early childhood master’s degree from the University of South Carolina.

McKinney moved back to the area about a year ago and began painting again after retiring as an educator in Augusta, Georgia. She loves painting realistic arrangements and finding textures and hues deeply hidden when the light hits them. She mainly uses acrylic paint for the brilliance and its quick-drying qualities.

Peca has been an artist all of her life, although sometimes her art has had to take a backseat to life. She has tried many media, but her true love is oils. She started out painting figurative and still-life pieces, and she graduated to landscape painting.

The observation of light, texture and mood is what she strives for in her artwork. Peca has studied under some well-known artists from the Chicago area such as Sharon Roman, a landscape portrait painter; Charles Vickery, a marina and portraits painter; and Michael McNicholas, an oil and pastel portrait and still-life painter.

Peca has taken classes at local colleges and one of the oldest studios in the country in Chicago, Pallets and Chisel. She also studied still-life and figurative works at the school of representational art in Chicago. Recently, she has been taking classes at Longwood University, and she dabbles in photography.

Janet Williams has enjoyed drawing and other artistic endeavors since she was a small child and has been painting in oils since 1998. Having completed the teacher training programs at Bob Ross Studios, where she studied under international instructors, she is a Bob Ross Certified Instructor. She teaches landscapes, seascapes, florals and wildlife in her Farmville studio.