Anthem resident Linda Budge is an Animal Artist, painting man's best friend and most any furry animal. Linda grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she learned to love animals at her family's summer cabin in the Wasatch Mountains. Though she dreamed of being an artist, Linda chose a more "practical" major in college. She became a licensed professional dog handler, and began to take courses in art, studying and painting in her spare time. She sold her first painting for $15, and had a brief stint painting portraits of cats at a shopping mall.

All her hard work and study paid off, when Linda's paintings started to appear in Sports Afield, Bugle, and Wyoming Wildlife magazines. She has also been successful in placing her work in the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog, in St. Louis , Missouri . She created a painting for the 50th anniversary celebration for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, now hanging in the Foundation's Center in Smithtown, New York.

One of Linda's loves is a subject of more than one painting. Now 13 years-old, Sephy (short for Persephone), is a basset hound with one of the most soulful faces in dog-dom. Linda jokes that her husband likes Sephy around because "she earns her own way." Sephy's humorous antics are chronicled in several of Linda's works, and several were reproduced as veterinarian reminder cards. Sephy's latest claim to fame is as the hero of a children's book currently being developed by Anthem writer Anne Hoover, using Linda's illustrations of Sephy.

Linda occasionally does commission work for doting dog owners. "People are very particular about the paintings of their dogs," she says, understanding that need for the painting to match not only the look but also the personality. One of the commission works she shows is that of a darling Shih Tzu, named Oscar. Linda also hangs around local dog shows, looking for model talent of the canine variety. "I am always looking for that special expression, that special character that makes a great dog portrait." Linda sometimes tries to find dogs that can fit into a scene she has imagined, such as her "Bull Dogger" painting that shows a "tough guy" towering over an English Bull Dog at his feet.

Linda received some of her inspiration from living in Laramie , Wyoming , and Longmont , Colorado . Her surroundings put the wildlife on her doorstep, and eventually what she saw made it to her canvas. "Lots of animals came into my view," she says. "One time I had a moose wander by when I was painting."

Linda believes that her talent is God-given. "I always include Scripture in my paintings. However it's not always obvious. I don't hide it; I would rather people look for it." She puts scripture in her paintings as her "thank you" to God. "He has given me the ability to communicate through my paintings, and I celebrate God's life with my brush."

Now that Linda has made her home in Arizona, her paintings are moving toward the southwest variety of plants and animals. Even the picture windows in her Anthem studio offer a birds-eye view of the winged creatures, flying in for a brief bird-food snack. She relates a story about a neighbor calling to tell her to grab a camera and come over - several Javelinas were in the neighbor's yard digging a hole. Linda was able to snap a couple of pictures for "future reference." Perhaps those Javelinas will one day be immortalized on canvas, along with Linda's other famous, but unknowing subjects.

INFO> linda@lmbudge.com; www.lmbudge.com