Renowned as a consummate draftsman and master of traditional techniques in both oil and pastel, Monsma is a professor at Indiana University South Bend, where he teaches drawing and painting, and where he received his BA in Fine Arts. Monsma has been an instructor of drawing and painting at the university since 1997. His work has often been featured in The Pastel Journal, where he won the Jack Richeson/Best of Show award in the 2009 Pastel 100 Competition and in Pure Color: Best of Pastel (North Light Books).“Whether I am painting a still life or figure (or landscape) light plays an important role. I work in the Baroque tradition where light reveals and distills form and all its nuances. This is stage lighting where illumination exposes a mood, a setting or situation or some event about which we are not quite certain. It is light that invites the viewer to make discoveries in the shadows” - Ron Monsma