Linda Petrarca

Linda has been teaching most of her life. Early on, she taught snow skiing to teenagers. She worked for several Bell System Companies training customer service representatives. She established her own business in Los Angeles teaching customer service concepts and computer inventory control to employees from teenage to their sixties. When she and husband Bruce became Scuba divers, they each earned their assistant instructor ratings.

During her corporate years, painting, woodcarving, and ceramics were welcome outlets from the working world. She is a demonstrator for Plaid Corporation, the people who make so many of the most popular craft and instructional lines. Linda took classes locally, and yearly attended the annual convention of Decorative Painters in Las Vegas. During those intensive week-long seminars, she began to acquire ideas, skills, and surfaces to paint on. She was frustrated with the time required by traditional decorative paintings: surface prep, pattern transfer, painting, drying, painting, drying and finishing. She knew it didn't fit well into her busy lifestyle, and was sure she wasn't the only one who might be looking for some new techniques.

Enter Donna Dewberry's ONE Stroke painting system, which was being shown at the conferences. Just as most people who watched as Donna create beautiful work in a fraction of the time, using wet on wet, multiple loaded acrylic techniques, Linda was hooked. In July of 1998 Linda attended an instructor certification clinic taught by Donna in Chicago. Linda passed her certification and became the first ONE Stroke Certified Instructor (OSCI) in the state of Arizona. She is also a member of the Society of Decorative Painters, the Stencil Artisans League, and a member of the Arts and Crafts committee in PebbleCreek. In 1999, Linda was the Chairman of the Fall Festival of the Arts in PebbleCreek. She continues her work with the Arts & Crafts Committee and their festivals and shows.

Since becoming certified, Linda has taught many students how to ONEStroke. Many of her students have gone on to become OSCIs themselves. Linda attends ONE Stroke refreshers with Donna yearly and has assisted Donna at ONE Stroke Certifications.

With the influx of OSCIs due to the certification held in Phoenix in January, 2001, Linda has turned her attention from teaching to her wall business. Lisa Ingraham, OSCI, and Linda have a wall and furniture-decorating business called Paint YOUR Wagon. Through it, they are available to paint murals, Trompe de l'oeil, and commissions of decorative items. They are actively seeking avenues to promote ONE Stroke in Arizona and the West.

"Watercolor portrait" of Linda created from a photo by Frogfish Productions