Dog Portraits: Colorful vs Normal

Hello everyone! In the last newsletter I mentioned leaning in to the styles and subject matter that I enjoy, as suggested by Miriam Schulman in Artprenuer. When I thought about the artwork that I’ve created in the past, what came to mind were animals, colorful bright palettes, and line drawings.

 

I did the Animal Butt series years ago and when I painted those I absolutely loved getting lost in the fur and paint strokes. I would easily enter that state of flow that we all chase after. I’ve always loved animals and they make for really good subjects because they are super cute and most people tend to like them.

 

I’m drawn to very colorful palettes because of the little kid inside of me. I’m easily distracted by shiny objects, sparkly things, and bright colors. When I see something beautiful out there in the world I’m filled with fuzzy warm feelings and it makes me happy. I suppose my goal is to create that feeling for other people with my art and I think that colorful animals are a great cross section of all of that.

 

When I had the idea to start doing more pet portraits I had a very clear concept in my head for experimentation. My mom’s dog, Charlie, was the perfect test subject with his beautiful shaggy fur. And it helped that my mom was open to something colorful. The finished piece was exactly what I had envisioned, I could not be happier with the outcome. I was excited to do more of these fun portraits.

 

However, when I got the dog commissions for Scooby and Zelda the two owners wanted to have normal dog colors, which is understandable because the colorful versions are a risk. I know it would be hard to picture what they were going to look like in the end. That’s why I decided to do two versions of their dogs, one in the normal dog colors and one with bright colors. They both loved both versions and had a hard time choosing between them! Zelda’s owner ended up taking both paintings. You can see how that went here during the reveal.

 

Going forward, I’m hoping to do a lot more of these colorful Pet Portraits. Maybe I can become the colorful dog portrait-ess of San francisco, or some other fun nickname.

 

What do you think of the colorful dogs? Is there a future in colorful dogdom for me?