Pet Portrait Commissions
Custom oil paintings created from your photographs. Each work is hand-painted with expressive brushwork and classical technique.
A custom dog portrait usually begins long before the first layer of oil paint. In this case, the portrait of Ichi started with a photo reference placed beside the canvas and a charcoal sketch. At this stage I am not trying to finish anything yet. I am looking for the dog’s proportions, expression and character.
Sometimes I begin directly with a brush and thinned paint. Sometimes I draw from observation, and sometimes I use a simple grid to speed up the process and keep the main proportions accurate. For this portrait I started with charcoal because it allowed me to search for the structure of the head, the ears, the eyes and the general expression before moving into color.
When I use charcoal, I fix the drawing before painting. After the fixative dries, I can begin testing the first oil paint layers. This is where the portrait starts to become more than a drawing: I test the background, the shadows, the warm and cool tones, and the first highlights to see how the dog will sit inside the whole painting.
For me, a custom dog portrait is not only about copying a photograph. The photo is the starting point, but the painting has to become a physical object with its own surface, color and presence. The goal is to achieve a painterly look while still maintaining likeness — to make the dog recognizable, but also to let the portrait work as an oil painting rather than a copied photograph.
I paint custom dog portraits in oil from photographs. Each portrait is hand-painted as an original artwork, created individually for the dog and its owner.
Commission a custom dog portrait from your photo:
https://andreabocediart.com/pet-portrait-commissions/
