Artist Bio

 Linda Leonard

My name is Linda Elizabeth Leonard and I have been creating art independently for over 50 years. I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and was an Art Major at both Frostburg State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland where I learned Old Master’s techniques and free-er painting style. Most recently I attended Montgomery Community College where I took classes in Computer Graphics. Throughout my years as an artist I have used various mediums such as pastels, oils and acrylic on paper, masonite board and canvas.  I have studied Degas’ paintings and sculptures for many years and used to copy Albrecht Durer quite a bit at the beginning of my study of art. I have always liked Waterhouse and Sargeant’s style and subject matter for their expressive brushstrokes and romanticism they bring to their pieces. I am very interested in conveying movement of the figure and studying the beauty of movement and choreography in dance, gymnastics and the natural grace of horses. This painting of the cross country rider and horse splashing though water is an example of a more finished piece that I like because there is a sense of movement throughout the figures and the whole composition. My passion for art comes from being able to experience emotions again and have others understand the same positive feelings in my pieces. Boris Pasternak in Dr. Zhivago wrote, “art is an attempt to stop time by means of words.” He was speaking of his own art form of poetry but I believe this applies to all art mediums. For the past several years I have been working with photos I took or screen captures from videos of gymnasts from the 1980s using Adobe Photoshop elements, with interest in sequences of the same figures from various angles. In the future I hope to create mural size paintings with pastels and oils from these contact sheets intertwined or next to each other somewhat like sculpture in the round.