Capturing Your Pet's Personality With a Pencil Portrait

Almost all pet owners are very fastidious about caring for their family pet. They know their absolute likes and dislikes. Typically, they know and can recite all about their breed of pet and the history through the ages. Yet many pet owners do not take the time to capture the essence of their pet's personality and characteristics by immortalizing them in a pet portrait...not just a digital photograph but a quality pet portrait.

Throughout history patrons with pets have been known to hire artists to catch the superb qualities of their favorite creatures. Upon the invention of photography in the 19th century, it became easier and easier to find and catch those special moments for owners and their pets. However, today there is still a time honored tradition of having a pet portrait done by visual artist, be it a painter, a graphic artist, or a sculptor.

Having a special memento of your family pet is extremely important. A visual artist can create the most vibrant drawing or painting to bring back memories of their playfulness and personality. Visual artists that do pet portraits typically specialize in this niche and have a great deal of experience in creating realistic drawings that are also larger than life, even if the portrait is only a miniature.

In addition to being a unique item that will be treasured by family members, a pet portrait is also affordable if you consider the various mediums while also considering what size of portrait to request. An artist may specialize in 30 x 40 paintings but would also consider creating a miniature portrait. These miniature portraits are often affordable, allowing the pet owner to create a series of portraits perhaps of different poses or actions and also of different pets. Pet portraits have never been so affordable.

There are many different mediums to consider for your pet's portrait. These include photography, oil and acrylic paint, pastel, watercolor, and pencil. These portraits can easily become treasured heirlooms for generations, especially if you have a tradition of breeding a certain type of animal.

Consider creating a playful pet portrait of Fido, Fifi, or George, your family will enjoy the quality and playfulness of a portrait as opposed to just a photograph. Photographs are easy to take. Digital photographs capture hundreds, even thousands, of pictures. A drawing or a painting takes time and effort and creativity to translate the uniqueness, personality, light quality, and essence of a pet or person.

Where a photograph will abstract and two dimensionalize a subject matter, an artist will create a composition based on their unique vision of the subject matter and scene. If you hired twenty different artists to create twenty different pet portraits, you would have twenty very different view points of your pet. A digital camera cannot do that. It will take the same photograph and translate the subject matter realistically.

When reviewing the work of different pet portrait artists, consider the type of medium, their specialty (or niche), the cost, and the quality of past work. Ask to review samples of previous commissions. Quite often, these pet portrait artists are online and have a gallery ready to access to assist the prospective pet owner in any decisions.

The challenge for the pet portrait artist will be capturing your pet's personality. They can do this by sitting with you and your pet. Then, they can do a series of quick caricature sketches, or gesture drawings in pencil, that will aid them in creating a portrait. Many artists do work from photographs but these photographs are usually taken through an artist's lens. They consider composition and lighting and quality, often composing several different options for a pet owner to choose their favorite.