Pet Portrait - Vader, Black Lab

My daughter's latest pet portrait of Vader. I love his friendly, squishy face and the highlights of brown in his black fur.

Read more...

Colored Pencil Cabana

Recognize this sweet face?

You've heard me boast about my daughter's artwork before, but I just had to post her recent rendition of Cabana! The portrait is even more beautiful in real life--the digital scan doesn't do it justice. I love Cabana's happy expression and all the detail in her eyes, muzzle, tongue and fur. It's going to look beautiful framed.

Adrienne's Etsy shop is here. Commission a pet portrait with her this summer, and get 15% off. Enter the coupon code "PRINCE", valid through September 1, 2012.

Read more...

Two More Pet Portraits from Crusty Bug

My daughter's latest artistic creations. I'm know I'm biased, but I think they're pretty fabulous. These lovely dogs are Mollie Jo and Bobo. Mollie Jo was the Best in Show winner of Mango Minster this year, and my daughter was gracious enough to contribute her talents as a grand prize.

If you'd like your own pet portrait, click here.

Read more...

Deb's Dog and a Tickhead

Deb is a realtor that I met at the dog park. She's a lot of fun, always talking loudly and gesticulating and yelling at her dogs. When my husband came to the dog park with me the other day, I introduced Deb as our new realtor--not that we're looking to buy or sell a house right now! But if we ever do, Deb is our gal.

I took these photos of Deb's dogs a couple weeks ago, just for fun. I'm so pleased with how they came out that I decided to post them.

Sadie is a BALL DOG. Yes, those words need to be capitalized where Sadie is concerned.

This is Sammie, or Sam-Sam. She's a feisty cairn terrier who likes to jump up on people, but if you try to pet her, she runs away. A couple weeks ago, though, I managed to get a hold of her and gave her a quick little deep tissue massage. Now, she no longer runs away from me. Just call me Magic Fingers.

Here's Katie, an adolescent Brittany Spaniel. I see that teenaged defiance in her eyes, don't you?

I couldn't decide which photo I liked better, so I decided to post both.

And here, in non-sequitur fashion, is the top of Cabana's head. Around Christmas, Cabana got bitten by a tick (even though she gets Frontline every month, how disconcerting!). I didn't remove it very well, so the head of the tick stayed embedded for a few days, until it finally fell out. But it left this little bald patch that seems to be taking forever to fill in! When will it finally grow back?! Until it does, my husband's new endearing name for Cabana is "Tickhead". Lovely.

Read more...

Wordless Wednesday - Up to the Chin in Mustard

Read more...

Crusty Bug

Drum roll please! I'm excited to announce the grand opening of my daughter's Etsy shop. Adrienne can turn a photo of your pet into a gorgeous custom drawing, suitable for framing. Here is her latest drawing of our cat, Angie. As you can see, Adrienne is incredibly accurate and always manages to capture the subject's personality--and she also improves with each drawing she completes!

Adrienne prefers to work from 2-3 photos for reference, preferably high resolution. She can edit out distractions in the background, dirt specks, or whatever else you don't want included.

Since she's just starting out (she's 18-years old), her prices are fairly low in comparison to other similar drawings on Etsy. Be among the first to own a custom masterpiece at an introductory price. How's that for a schmoozy sales pitch? A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

Adrienne asked me what she should name her Etsy shop. We were standing in the kitchen at the time, and I saw a bowl in the sink with a little bit of crusty oatmeal left in it. I jokingly said, "How about Crusty Oatmeal?" She laughed and then decided to call her shop "Crusty Bug". So I guess I'm partially to blame for the name. Whatever the name, I know her customers will be pleased with the result.

Read more...

Pet Portrait: Bayla

My older daughter is home from college, where she is majoring in graphic design. She was recently commissioned by a dog park friend to do a pet portrait of their 4-year old Bernese mountain dog, Bayla.

I keep encouraging my daughter to set up an Etsy shop for her artwork, but she's eighTEEN, with the emphasis on TEEN, meaning she doesn't always want to take old mom's direction. She enjoys drawing, but she's rather unmaterialistic, so making money is just not a big priority to her! Go figure! Other examples of her pet portraits are here and here.

The original photo of Bayla is below. I think my daughter did a fabulous job of capturing Bayla's sweet and playful demeanor.

P.S. If you know Bayla, please don't say anything to her owners--the portrait is a surprise for Christmas from Bayla's dad to Bayla's mom!

Read more...

Another Pet Portrait

Cabana plays with these aussies every weekend at the park. Cooper has brown eyes, and Navee has blue. Navee is younger, but he's actually Cooper's uncle--figure that one out! We've become close friends with their owners, so when we were invited to a surprise birthday party for one of them who was turning the big five-o, I asked my talented older daughter to draw a picture of their dogs as a gift. I really enjoy giving personal and handmade gifts when possible.

And this is how the drawing turned out. I matted and framed it for our friends, and they were extremely touched and pleased. In fact, they called me immediately after opening it (they didn't open presents until the following day) to say how much they loved it. I think my daughter really captured the dogs' spark and personalities. Surprisingly, she doesn't really even like dogs that much (good thing Cabana can't read), but she does a great job of drawing them anyway. Here's one she did of a golden retriever several months ago. I think she should open up little side business doing these pet portraits to help work her way through college next year!

Read more...

Pet Portrait

A good friend of ours asked my older daughter to draw a portrait of her 12-year old golden retriever, Kenzie. My daughter used oil pastels for the drawing. We framed it and presented it to her this past weekend.

Our friend was thrilled with the result and felt the drawing really captured Kenzie's essence. I have to agree. I'd like a portrait of Cabana next!

Read more...