 This prize (worth $300) and the additional sales that followed enabled Rita to quit her job and paint full-time – it also allowed her to buy more paint and canvas than she dreamed possible.Armed with better paint, more colors and more material, she began painting larger works in explosions of violent color  and won second prize in the painting category in the Concours artistiques du Québec in 1961.Her compositions were intensely personal, more carefully planned; she began anchoring masses with carefully visualized gestures which would often take hours to visualize and execute.