Last month I had the pleasure of participating in a wonderful storytelling group where we all shared the adventures of dogs in our lives, both past and present. This was conceived by my talented friends by Fred Swan and Stan Peterson who are both well loved artists in Portland Oregon. The event, called Dog Tales was an intimate experience that lead to knowing more about my fellow artist that I would have ever learned during those brief conversations we’re able to have during gallery openings.
Happy Together No Matter the Weather (left) and A Friend for All Seasons (right) by Linda Robertson. Both 24 x 24 in., acrylic on canvas. $425 each, framed.
This event was the seed for the new show called Dog Park on view until March 21 at the Ford Gallery. I have two new paintings in the show which express my enthusiasm for my canine companions over the years. I created these in the same style as my recent encaustic paintings, but just to shake things up I worked in acrylic with which I have very little experience. The process was alternately fun and pretty darn awful, but I eventually found my rhythm and I’m very happy with the results.
I often try new mediums and methods to remind myself how it feels to try something completely new because I think it makes me a better teacher and artist. This project was an especially good reminder that sometimes I just need to keep working at a problem until I figure it out, no matter how frustrated I might get.
As an added bonus, a friend let me play with Illustrator on her iPad so I could quickly try different colors for the silhouette in one of my paintings. Very fun!
I hope you’ll catch the show if you can. More than 30 artists are represented using a variety of styles to celebrate the dogs that fill their hearts with love.
Ford Gallery
2505 SE 11th Ave, Portland, OR
Show runs through March 21
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Linda Robertson is a painter and the author of the Embracing Encaustic Book series and she offers live encaustic workshops in her Portland, Oregon studio as well as online encaustic classes.
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