They say that dogs are like their owners, and this definitely seems like the case for artist Julia Powell and her dog.
No, golden retriever Ella Fitzgerald isn’t exactly picking up a paintbrush and creating the newest canine work of art, but rather she’s started critiquing her owner’s work.
Julia says it’s only recently that six-year-old Ella started noticing her paintings: “I caught her pausing more than usual when she walked by them.”
It would seem that these pauses soon escalated into something much bigger: namely Ella’s new-found love for art criticism. Despite being relatively new to the game, make no mistake – because Ella is a pro.
“Ella has a discerning eye and an unimpeachable moral centre and I think she realised that my paintings were finally developing into the kind of work that she could take seriously,” Julia says. “At long last my art is worthy of her attention.” High praise indeed.
Even though the old wives’ tale says that dogs are colour-blind, this is actually a myth (although it is true that dogs don’t see quite the colour spectrum that humans do). In fact, Ella even prefers some colours to others.
“Definitely she likes the water paintings – especially green, blue and grey tones,” Julia says. “She is far less interested in my birch series and in paintings that have a lot of reds and oranges.” Ever the discerning art critic.
Julia is a professional contemporary painter based outside of Boston who primarily focuses on landscapes – much to Ella’s obvious delight.
