The painting will be as good as, well.... okay slightly better than, the photograph. I cannot, hard as I may try, magically make a beautiful portrait of your baby if the photo looks like a furry blob with two glowing orbs that I can assume are eyes. This can be easily remedied by keeping a few simple things in mind when taking or choosing a photo of your pet for a portrait…

Clear and Close-up are the key things to remember. If your pet has some specific marking that makes him or her unique, make sure you mention it in your contact e-mail and that it shows in the photo the way you’d like it to.

Try to get down on your pet’s level. Pictures from above can be extremely cute and, by all means, don’t rule them out, but notice how intently your pet can look into the camera head-on…intense isn’t it?

Natural light typically makes for really great pictures with clear detail and accurate color. If you are a fantastic photographer and have pictures with creative lighting, bring it on. In general, strong shadows across the face (under a tree or piece of furniture for example) will diminish the overall impact. Just keep it bright and simple.

A favorite toy can be a great tool for getting that attentive or focused expression. However, you should certainly choose a photo wherein your pet’s expression is in line with his or her true personality.

Have fun! If you are happy, your pet is happy and your bond will come through in the photo and be magnified and immortalized in the portrait.

I can also easily include animals from different photos in the same portrait. Just because they weren’t really next to each other doesn’t mean it can’t look like it. I will draw them on the same canvas.

Try to include something for scale, even another photo which might help me determine how much smaller or bigger one animal should be than another.

Of course, you love them all the same so sometimes scale isn’t important.

You can decide.

If you are looking for some kind of composite like this but are not sure how you would like it to look, I can do a few different mock-ups for you and you can choose the one you like best. It’s easy to get exactly what you want