For year number six now I am donating a Pet Portrait gift certificate to the Cochrane & Area Humane Society’s annual fundraising gala, which is coming up on November 5th 2016. Every year the CAHS raises money through various fundraising efforts to help local animals in need, and their gala event proceeds this year are going directly towards a much needed Rehabilitation & Education Centre:

Digital rendering of future centre from CAHS’s website.

Not only has the Humane Society grown significantly over the years, but their current location won’t be available to them much longer. They are nearing their fundraising goal to make this new space a reality, and when I heard the news I was more than happy to donate an item to their silent auction fundraiser. I just wanted to pass along the event info here in case it was of interest to others in the Cochrane / Calgary area:

When: Saturday, November 5th 2016, at 6:45pm
Where: Links of GlenEagles, Cochrane, Alberta
Tickets: $100 ea

This year’s gala features unique food and duelling pianos, with a silent and live auction. For more information about CAHS or their upcoming gala, please visit www.cochranehumane.ca .

Last Thursday, a husband surprised his wife with a custom pet portrait of their miniature Aussie dog named Odie to mark a celebration in their lives.

A special request was made for this piece to be painted flat, so that it could be easily framed & coordinated with the décor once in their home. So instead of painting this piece on one of my usual ‘gallery wrap’ style 1.5″ deep canvases, I painted it on a canvas panel which is approx 3/16″ thick:

Since we went with an 8″x10″ painting size, it’s possible to frame this piece in a store bought 8×10 frame simply by removing the glass and inserting the painting.

This is the first time I’ve painted a pet portrait on canvas panel, and as soon as I popped it into one of my picture frames to see what it looked like I was in love! I definitely plan to have some pieces for my own home like this in the future now lol. But back to Odie…

I was so thrilled with how the painting looked in my ornate black frame, that I tried it in a totally different style of frame like this distressed wood one:

I could have tried his painting in different frames all day long, it was so fun lol. With a face that cute, he’ll look great framed in any style!

When the painting was picked up last week I got to meet Odie too, which is always a great bonus! Hoping to get some Animal Doppelgänger pix of this cutie posing with his painting too, fingers are crossed 🙂

With the 2016 holiday season approaching, I wanted to share some important info / dates for those considering artwork for Christmas this year:

PAINTINGS

Important dates for paintings:
Order by: Oct 31
for packages to be mailed by: Dec 12.
or for local pick up by: Dec 23.

I am currently taking on holiday orders for paintings until October 31st. Ordering by this date ensures you will receive your piece by December 23rd. Orders are done on a pick up or mail out basis, and packages will be mailed before December 12th (which is Canada Post’s recommended cut off date to receive by Christmas) . Local (Calgary, AB) orders will be ready for pick up for the week of December 19 to 23, and a day/time will be confirmed closer to that time. However, if paintings are required sooner than these dates, please let me know asap and I will do my best to work it into my schedule.

To view Pet Portrait examples, frequently asked questions, or to request a quote, please check out my Pet Portrait page. Oh! And Custom Art painting orders are welcome too of course!

SKETCHES

At this time I am also starting to take on orders for my Pets-A-Sketch drawings & custom ornaments. These have a shorter turnaround time of approx one week, so they don’t need to be ordered quite as early on in the season as canvas paintings. Like the paintings though, they are on a pick up or mail out basis only.

Important dates for sketches:
Order by: Dec 1 (if mailing is required), to mail by Dec 12.
Order by: Dec 15, for local (Calgary) pick up by Dec 23.

Brand new to my website this year is a page dedicated just to my pet sketches! It has examples, size info, pricing, and order information, which can all be viewed here: robynmillar.com/pet-portraits/pets-a-sketch/ . Orders are generally done by email, and can be sent to artbyrobynmillar@hotmail.com.

Gift Certificates:

If you would like to give a painting or sketch this season, but don’t have access to photos of the recipients pets, or are unsure of what style of artwork they’d like etc… Gift Certificates are available too! These can be mailed by Dec 12, or emailed digitally or picked up in person until December 23rd.

Additional holiday order info:

– All Christmas orders of paintings & sketch ornaments come packaged ready to gift!
– If there are any Christmas painting slots remaining after October 31, they will be available on a first come first serve basis only.
– Paintings ordered after the Christmas slots are sold out will be completed after the holidays.
– Orders are generally done by email, but feel free to get in touch via Facebook or Instagram as well! For emailing, the best way to reach me at is artbyrobynmillar@hotmail.com 🙂

On September 14th 2016, a Boston Terrier named Archibald (aka Archie) celebrated his 15th birthday. His friend Dudley (a one-eyed Boston Terrier I got to paint recently, as seen HERE) commissioned me do a painted portrait and a watercolour sketch of ol’ Arch as a birthday gift surprise! Since the package arrived in Boise Idaho safe & sound and has been opened now, I’m able to share pix here:

I had a blast working on these two pieces. The reference photo I was given for the painting was super great – crisp detail, perfect lighting, and a hilarious & happy as can be expression. Then total stink-eye pose for the sketch piece lol. So much character packed into this one little creature. For the background of the painting I was given free rein to pick the colour. I really liked the bright green of the grass from the original photo, so I plucked a hue from there that complimented him and his big personality. And that’s what brought me to this kelly green shade! And since his expression in the sketch cracks me up also, here is a close up of that piece also:

I seriously can’t get enough of this guy lol.

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Back in April I was contacted by a sweet couple to do a sketch/watercolour of their late pup as a surprise birthday gift for their young daughter who missed her doggy oh so much. I was very touched that they asked me to do this for them! They also requested that I include their pup’s name in the artwork too, which was a nice detail. And here we have Sadie’s finished piece:

A photo posted by Robyn Millar (@artbyrobynmillar) on Apr 10, 2016 at 7:08pm PDT

(If you are having trouble viewing the image, you can also see it HERE.)

This piece was my first time doing an 8″x10″ watercolour version of my Pets-A-Sketch series, so I wanted to share a post on it even though it’s way late in the making 😉

Oh, and they asked me to pick the name text colour (as long as it wasn’t pink), and so I opted for a cheery emerald colour! What do you think about including the name within the sketch border?

During the summer, a client contacted me to create a set of three ‘Splash of Colour’ style Pets-a-Sketch pieces. Her plan was to gift them to her friend as a house warming present. As her friend moved recently, these custom drawings can be revealed now, yay!

They were done on 5″x7″ Arches watercolour paper, with ink & watercolour accents. Here are some close ups of each pup:

Navi

Molly

Spencer

On second thought, those pix are actually very close to the scale of them in real life! Vs being close ups 😀 . Anywho…

My client sent me this photo of the sketches all framed up, which I thought was awesome:

I still need to set up a place on my website to showcase my pet sketches & watercolours! Soon soon soon I hope. But for now, the blog is where it’s at 🙂

Yesterday, this pair of cat paintings was given as a surprise birthday gift from wife to husband. I really enjoyed working on these handsome fellows! When my client initially got in touch with me, she let me know a little bit about how these guys interact with her husband: “He has a special relationship with these cats.  They’re usually draped over him in some fashion or sitting on his desk while he works”, which I thought was quite sweet.

For the background colours, we went with different ones for each cat so they can each pop on there own, but also be complimentary as a set. Before I got started on the paintings she let me know some colours that she liked from my website, plus sent me photos of their decor colours which is always helpful for deciding too. We were looking at earthy colours in the blue/teal/green vein. So for Milton I picked the blue to make his bluey-green eyes pop, while not competing with the contrast of his black & white fur. For Digby I loved this pea green because it complimented his warm grey fur and greenish-yellow eyes. All together the pieces look warm and balanced on their own, or as a set, which I love.

Shortly after these paintings were gifted yesterday, my client sent me some awesome doppelgänger pictures of the kitties posing with their paintings:

Digby doppelgänger

Milton doppelgänger

I love that she captured them with similar expressions/ poses to their paintings too! Bonus doppelgänger points 🙂 . Love love love these guys <3

I’m excited to share that I recently celebrated a personal milestone:

“I have now completed 200 pet portrait paintings!”

It’s pretty surreal for me to think that the number of furry little faces I’ve painted over the years is now in the 200’s. Seriously… that’s just craziness! But definitely exciting.

I often get asked how it all started with me painting pets. Well, approximately 9 years ago I had an impulse to paint my childhood cat KC. I moved to Calgary in 2006 for college, and left my beloved furball at my family home. He’d lived there his whole life, so it was a no brainer to leave him there and not uproot him… though I very seriously thought about smuggling him to Alberta with me lol. Anyway, I had a bit of a painting hiatus after highschool but started painting again in 2007, and I missed that darn cat so much I wanted to make a little canvas of him to have with me in my new home. That 4″x4″ painting of him can be seen in the above image on the right. Looking at it now, it definitely was a “starter” piece lol. It looks quite different to my current style of painting, which is why I rarely show it to anyone (and why it’s purposefully out of focus in and in the background of the above pic lol). But it is sentimental for being my Pet Portrait #1, so I imagine that I will keep it forever no matter how rough it looks 😀

Fast forward to August 2016, and I have now completed over 200 Pet Portrait paintings to date! To celebrate, I decided to paint a new portrait of KC. Truth be told, I actually started this piece a few of years ago when I was approaching pet portrait #100. It was my intention to celebrate it at that time, but then that turned out to be my busiest season to date (you can check out a video on that here HERE), and it kind of fell by the wayside. Then when I was approaching the high 100’s I started chipping away at him a little more whenever I could. “If you don’t do it now, when will it get done?”. There’s always going to be more work to do, more errands or chores to do… more things to do in general. So I made time for myself to finish this guy up, and I’m excited that he gets to represent my 200th finished pet portrait painting! That 6″x6″ piece is shown in the image at the top of this post on the left.

It’s been quite the journey to this point, and I look forward to the next 100+ pieces 🙂 . Thank you all for following along with me over the years, for trusting me to paint your pets and/or sentimental gifts for loved ones, and of course for your referrals and support – it all means so much to me!

Earlier in July I got to complete a custom 18″x12″ pet portrait of an adorable dog named Peanut. My client requested a purple floral background for this piece, so I sent him some style ideas and we decided on this ‘mod’ graphic style flower pattern. I had a reeeally fun time sketching and creating this custom background:

(background design stage, plus product testing)

As I already knew from doing my Minimalist Portrait series… “simple” looking designs are usually the hardest ones to pull off lol. This background took approximately 3x longer than I anticipated, but at the same time I found the meticulous process very satisfying & relaxing. Not sure how that works, but I’ll take it haha!

This is the first time I’ve done a background like this, and it was also the first time I used a dipping pen with paint:

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