Pet Portrait Paintings

Pet portraits are a wonderful way to immortalize a beloved member of your family on canvas: a member of your family who happens to have fur which is rich in character and varied in color, no matter what the breed of cat. Painting cats and rabbits give me the chance to use impasto, which is very thick paint which sticks right out off the surface.

Chloe shown here as a resting "Puss in Boots" was a real treat to paint (I love her jade-colored eyes and will definitely return to paint a more serious and close portrait), and this is my first whimsical picture in quite some time. I realize without the theatrical props (she was very annoyed posing with all that stuff), there would be a very nice painting of a reclining cat, but I needed to take the risk of making this an out of the ordinary portrayal, otherwise I might have just taken a photo of her. Below is our late pet Baby painted many years ago and which now serves as a memorial, and below her is not my pet at all but an oil remix of Durer's Hare, a very impasto painting with the fur being almost identical to Chloe's.

I painted this one below some years ago of me in a coon-skin (fake) hat with my beloved Rottweiler Archie, who loved or at least was very curious about that hat.