Meet the Artist

Dorothy has always loved color and design  – from coloring books, to paper dolls, to ceramics, to drawing pictures – any and everything.  Then she discovered decorative painting.  Dorothy first painted with oils and  her first teachers were Mary Jo Leisure and Peggy Hobbs.  She spent most of her vacation days at the Village Tole House in Arlington, Texas and recalls that they painted morning, noon and night for weeks at a time. She remembers how beautiful they painted leaves.  The painting called to her from the first time she visited their shop.  Dorothy has dabbled with watercolors, colored pencils, pastels, but always comes back to decorative painting in acrylics.

 Dorothy’s husband, Stanley, taught school and was the girl’s basketball coach for 20 years.  She worked full time during those years for the Texas Highway Department and could not leave work every time the girls had a basketball game.  They often played out of town, and the team would leave in the middle of the afternoon.  This gave her time to pursue the painting.   She fell in love with this art form, and decided to share the decorative painting with others.  Dorothy began a teaching career in 1975.  Since then, she has traveled to teach in art shops, with painting clubs, Canada’s Kasswood Convention, and at the Society of  Decorative Painting Conventions.  She now has regularly scheduled workshops at her studio in Abilene, Texas.

For the past several years, Dorothy has had a booth at the Society of Decorative Convention and at Tole Country held in Oklahoma City, OK. She exhibits her art, sells instruction books, workbooks and pattern packets.  While attending the Convention in Anaheim, California, she won the 2007 Joan Johnson Award of Excellence - Decorative Arts Collection Competition.  The DACA contest is an international competition. 

Dorothy has been an active member of the Society of Decorative Painters since 1973.  The headquarters for the Society of Decorative Painters is located in Wichita, Kansas.  Her training in the decorative art field began in 1970, and she earned her Certification in Decorative Painting in 1984.

From 1978 until 1981, Dorothy was co-owner of the Board and Palette in Abilene, Texas.  The Board and Palette was an art shop mainly for decorative painters.  Several different artists taught classes each week at the B&P.  They sold art supplies, art books, and held many art classes there.

Dorothy is a teacher, designer, and publisher of decorative art workbooks.  Gretchen Cagle of Gretchen Cagle Publications, Inc. has published six instruction books, Art with Heart, Vol. 1 through 6, which Dorothy authored.  These books were sold in Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and painting shops around the country.  She began publishing her own workbooks - Welcome Wings I (Birds),  Welcome Wings II (Butterflies), and the latest one published in June, 2008 is titled Santa’s Helpers: Jennie, Jack and Jill.  

On a personal note, Dorothy and Stanley Whisenhunt were married 54 years on July 2, 2008.  Stan retired after 33 years as Superintendent at Wylie School in Abilene, Texas.  Dorothy retired from the Texas Highway Department (Abilene District Office) in 1990 after working there for 36 years.  She presently works for a tour company (Bilbrey Tours, Inc) in Abilene, Texas.