About

Roxanne has been expressing herself through writing, drawing and painting ever since she could hold a crayon. Or pencils. Or chalk. Despite the persistent Mennonite opinion of artists as “liars and rascals,” her parents cautiously encouraged this interest and even sent her to summer and weekend classes at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon.

Although she’s continued to take classes over the years, most recently with water-colourist Donna-Mae Senft, Roxanne is primarily self-taught. A trial-and-error painter, she loves playing with symbolism, colour and design and is grateful that she’s always had artistic people in her life to advise her. And if she doesn’t like how something looks, she paints over it until she does.

In 2010, Roxanne created a series of large acrylic paintings to fill up the enormous blank walls at her husband’s business, Ellwood Park Animal Hospital. These mixed-media abstracts and collages highlight the human-animal bond, incorporating famous quotations reflecting the universal importance of compassion.

To her great delight, people loved them. Some even wanted to buy them, right off the walls. So she made more, experimenting with materials and patterns, and new quotations in different fonts.

Each piece begins with texture, layers of gesso, plaster, gel sculpting medium and occasional found materials. Then she layers on acrylic paints and glazes, using a variety of tools and techniques until she likes the effect. Finally, she adds the lettering, using stencils, plaster, or craft materials.

All Roxanne’s paintings are done on 100% cotton duck archival-quality canvas, gallery-stretched on kiln-dried, beveled stretcher bars.