Playful Portraiture
By Regan M. White

For Patricia Buckley Gotwols, there was never a question concerning her life’s calling. “I was born knowing I was going to paint. It was not something I chose. It’s something that chose me.” Growing up in Medford, Massachusetts with a slew of pets and a keen love of animals, it seems that Pat’s subject matter was a given as well.

A graduate of the New England School of Art and trained at the Maryland College of Art, Gotwols spins her classic portraiture training to whimsically and humorously illustrate the alter egos of our favorite animals. Dogs take midnight drives, ducks saunter to the bathtub and dashing, debonair monkeys don three-piece suits. Gotwols’ love of animals and their true characters is more than apparent in her honest and playful paintings.

While trained in classic oil painting, Gotwols developed a sudden allergic reaction to flaxseed and turpentine, rendering oil painting impossible. Given the situation, her options were: paint with acrylics or not paint at all-thus, acrylics it is. Her paintings are quite large, generally 15x36 and Pat is sure to paint every day. Due in small part to the nature of quick-drying acrylics and in large part to her amazing skill level, Pat paints very, very quickly-she can do a painting in just a couple of days. She had been painting every other day but spaces them out a bit more now to allow ample time with her five grandchildren.

In terms of subject matter, Gotwols simply loves animals and always has. She says, “I try to paint dogs and animals with great faces. Humor is usually the angle I am coming from – animals and pets just bring such joy!” Pat is continuously able to approach painting in a new light thanks to the observations and experiences she has in real life. Her latest slant is to paint the dogs with their faces close up and their bodies behind, creating the effect that they are soft and close to you. Every new observation brings a new angle, a new perspective, a new painting. All of the dogs that she paints are dogs that she knows. Featured in many of her paintings and particularly dear to her heart is her Golden Retriever, Bo, whom she recently lost. She’s interested in getting another one from a rescue group soon, but isn’t home enough these days to do it just yet.

About Goldens and Labradors, Pat just can’t say enough. “They’re the two dogs I’d have around my grandchildren. They have love for everyone. You don’t even have to worry about them around anyone. They just love unconditionally. There’s not any other breed like them.” It seems Pat’s children have taken a few lessons from her as well. “My kids have Labs and Goldens. I had every kind of pet imaginable growing up and when you have that as a kid you want that for your children, too. I guess that passes on.” It doesn’t hurt that two of her children are artistically inclined – guess that passes on as well.

Pat shares her life and her comical cast of creatures with her husband of 40 years, Bruce, a physicist. Obviously, the left and right-brained contrasts of the household are well covered.

To view an array of Pat’s colorful work visit her site. To purchase her Labrador prints, visit our All Labs’ Art Gallery.