Pet Portraits

After painting this portrait for a dear friend, I’ve had requests coming in asking me to do portraits of other pets.  In the interest of honesty, I’m not really a ‘pets’ person. I do love animals, I just don’t want to live with them, or be responsible for the life of another creature.

Ginger was a special dog, a gorgeous and shy Rhodesian Ridgeback who was finicky about whom she befriended. It took her and me quite a while to decide whether or not we liked one another.  I was shocked one day when I arrived for a visit to find her semi-excited to see me rather than look at me like a freshly roasted turkey on Thanksgiving day! I was genuinely heartbroken when I learned it was ‘time’. 

I’ve had an odd compulsion to paint her since she passed. For me, it is odd because I am a painter of birds and flowers.  I’ve never had the desire to create portraits of pets.  Especially when I see all the wonderful artists in the world already doing so, and doing it well.

Now, however, I have gotten so much positive feedback and requests to do it for others, that I am thinking of offering that as a service. To be honest, I have a few requests to fulfill before I can reasonably offer it as a real service, but I’ve realized the joy that something like this can bring others. 

Based on input, I’m going to make my service a bit different. I am only going to offer these portraits in a 6×9 format in your choice of Colored Pencil or Watercolor for a price of $180.00.  Also, for an extra charge, I’ll include a color-corrected, high-res, watermark-free scan of the image and shared rights to the image. While I will retain all rights to use the image, you too may use it for social media, greeting cards, clothing, etc.  

This is something I’ve only started to toss around. The thing with portraits (of any subject) is the eyes; they must be just right. If the eyes are wrong, the whole thing is wrong; it is quite literally, “all in the eyes.”