Ross Buckland

Born in Calgary Alberta, Ross, as a child, often moved due to his father's job involvements but his family finally settled in Ontario. While growing up, Ross would visit his grandparents in Calgary during summer holidays. Getting there meant the excitement of a 4 hour flight from Toronto - so an early interest in flying evolved. Eventually, with an aviation career in mind, he moved to Calgary to teach flying and build hours toward an airline job. In the early 80's, he was diagnosed with mild color blindness which seemed to end his aspirations in aviation. He got a job working on the gound with a major airline which provided a steady paycheck and the ability to travel, but forced him to move back to Ontario.

Encouraged by his family, drawing became a very important part of his life. This became even more evident when he discovered that family and friends in the aviation industry actually wanted to pay money for his paintings. With no formal art training except in high school art classes, Ross learned by studying the works of artists whose paintings he enjoyed the most. Books and magazines featuring the works of Frank Wootton, Keith Ferris, and R.G. Smith became his textbooks. He would visit the Air & Space Museum in Washington to see their paintings and try to learn from the real thing. Their books remain as valuable treasures and he still refers to them ofte,

"Aviation art, like other subjects, usually requires a background or environment surrounding and supporting the main subjects. Trying to learn and solve the problems of depicting landscape and figures from other artists became influential and inspirational to me. Aviation art. for the most part, calls for tight and technically correct (exact) work." However, Ross admits that gradually landscape painting has become his main focus, especially depicting scenes or elements from the west.

Mr. Buckland has earned several awards at various shows and competitions such as: Art Flight at the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa, Horizons of Flight in Dallas and the first Gold Founders Award by the American Society of Aviation Artists ( This was awarded at the 1987 ASAA Forum for the painting "One-O-Wonder" of the CF-101). In addition, two pieces were juried into a major exhibition at the U.S.A.F. Museum in Dayton. His artwork has also been reproduced as open and limited edition prints and was selected to be used for greeting cards by major world wide associations and organizations.