[NOTE: I'm taking a workshop to learn how to sell on the Web. This is a draft of a new "landing page" visitors will come to after clicking my Google ad. Let me know what you think -- I'd appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, it's all helpful. Use the comment field below or email me at info@PetsPictured.com.]

“Just look at that face!”
How many times has your dog inspired you to say those words?

A portrait captures that Look in an heirloom you’ll treasure forever.

People often pay my work the sincere compliment, “It looks just like a photograph!” That usually starts me thinking, “But there is so much more to it. In fact, it begs the question: ‘Why commission a portrait, if the result looks just like the photo I’m working from?’”

Your photo records your dog’s likeness — my portrait captures the “life-ness” — Why? Photographs dutifully record every ray of light that the camera “sees.” Of course, the camera doesn’t really “see,” its lens just frames and focuses the light passing through it. Artists, on the other hand, process what passes through their eyes differently. My “Artist’s Eye” filters out the nonessentials to reveal, well, the “essence” of my subject — a living, breathing being full of personality.

After over forty years of making art, I don’t know how it happens — part of it comes naturally, a gift from God. But like a gifted athlete (which I am *decidedly* not!), I do know I have to stay in condition, train, and practice to keep my skills sharp. But sheer mechanical ability to reproduce a subject isn’t enough either. Many artists have honed those skills, but their work lacks a spark of life. Folks say my work has that spark of life, though I can only muse about why and how.

Most non-artists think art is about gifted eyes and hands (but becoming blind or paralyzed hasn’t stopped artists, has it?). It’s about the connection between eyes and hands. Yes, the brain acts as microprocessor and switchboard, taking care of the mechanics of vision and small-motor coordination. More importantly, the Mind, Soul, Spirit, those seats of emotion and memory, are equally active participants in creating art.

Every pencil stroke in my portraits is filtered through a heart warmed by many dogs, cats, and birds over the years, a mind that savors light playing on fur and feathers, and a soul that marvels at the miracle of communication between species. I always call my portrait subjects by name when I’m working on them. Even my family knows “Brit,” “Lindsay,” Sadie,” “Gretel, “Bart and Tali,” “Marie and Pierre,” “Candy,” “Buddy,” “Miss Kitty,” “Bandit,” “Barkley,” “Daisy,” and others by name!

I’d love to meet your best buddy, too, and capture that wonderful face that makes your heart melt (and makes you hand over the treats!). Bring back warm memories of a beloved buddy now gone. Or commission your current mutt’s angelic mug as a reminder next time you arrive home to evidence of a chewing marathon!