Title: “Breeds Gather”

Artist: Candace Wagner

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size:  48″ x 36″ x 1.5″

Price: $10,000.00  Contact National Purebred Dog Day to inquire about purchasing this piece

Artist’s Thoughts: “Breeds Gather”, the title of this piece, describes my thinking as I envisioned this painting. Current events, my feelings in the wake of current events, have been an overwhelming sense of frustration over so much isolation & division. Perhaps to escape these feelings, I imagined a lovely scene, fresh air and sunshine with all of us coming together at the river. To summarize my process, I’d say it involves careful observation, imaginative design, and free-flow expression through painted oils application. Also part of this process, was the choice to work on a larger 36 x 48” canvas. It was proportional to the poster size and gave me more room to be free with my brushstrokes. Regarding size, by the way, if CaFÉ’s image size requirements cause low clarity, please allow me to send larger file before prints are made.

My ultimate goal with this work, as with most of my paintings, is to make beauty-filled (fine) art for everyone to appreciate and enjoy. I hope to create something of heirloom quality, so that it will withstand the test of time. After reading the contest guidelines, I realized my biggest challenge would be to fit 9 dogs into a pleasing, 18 x 24” composition & do so without overlaps. No overlapping of the dogs, because I wanted to avoid the feeling of ‘collage’ or ‘clip art’ and also because I wanted to give each dog individual attention to their AKC conformation standard. In order to accomplish the above, I was not always able to select my favorite breed from each group. Rather, my choices were based upon their various ancestral origins, AKC acceptable sizes, ear types, coat lengths & colors. Each dog was chosen, as though it were the perfect ‘missing puzzle-piece’ to complete the idyllic scene I aimed to create.

NPDDArt2023