Robyn Millar

I’m excited to get to participate again this year in Kootenay Gallery’s annual juried “Christmas at the Gallery” exhibit & sale! I’m so excited in fact that I even created nine new Mixed Media paintings for the event 🙂 ! All of which are on display and available for purchase during the exhibit, which opens November 13th & goes all the way to Christmas Eve. Kootenay Gallery also stocks my full line of greeting cards – including Pet Art Cards, and ‘Modern Nostalgia’ Art Cards – individually, or some packages are available too.

If you are in the Castlegar area do feel free to pop by and check out my new pieces in person, plus a wide variety of work by talented local artisans! Here is the event info:

What: ‘Christmas at the Gallery’
When: November 13th through December 24th 2015
Where: Kootenay Gallery of Art (120 Heritage Way, Castlegar BC)
Admission: Free!

– Additional info –
Opening reception: November 13th at 7pm!
Hours of Operation: Tues-Sat 10am-5pm during November, then 7 days per week 10am-5pm in December with the show closing at 2pm on December 24th.

For more info please contact me or the Kootenay Gallery directly.

The above photo is a quick snap my mum took of my pieces in the gallery space during last year’s Christmas at the Gallery event. I’m excited to see how the show looks this year! 🙂

PS – I will be featuring my new Mixed Media paintings in my next blog post, so stay tuned!! 🙂

Tonight, Skeeter Lewis’ painting headed home in all its ‘gopher pose’ glory! I just love his stance so much, oh my goodness.

I had a very tricky time getting a proper photo of this particular painting to be honest – black dogs are hard enough to photograph, then adding a dark green background in the mix made it even harder haha! So much glare off the paint to try and manage. Anyway, after many many tries, this ones does the trick 🙂

When it comes to painting details, I’m used to asking clients if they’d like the dog’s collar left in or if they’d prefer me to take it out for the painting. But it’s not every day that I need to ask a client this one: “…sooo would you like me to leave in his ‘personal area’? Or would you like me to adjust his tummy fluff to cover it etc”. It felt weird enough asking, but I wanted to be sure whether they wanted it included or not haha! Here was their response, which totally cracked me up:

“Lol we love his little gentlemen bits so we like them left in.  We joke about how we have to shovel him a path on the winter so his little peepee doesn’t drag in the snow 🙂 And yes let’s keep the collar too.  Thanks so much for your passion to detail.” 

I’m glad I asked! 😀 Best answer ever lol. This is actually the second painting I got to do for his mum, after painting Maggie Belle Bean for her & her husband earlier this year. Her notes on their pups are some of my faves to date, and just because I thought it was so cute here’s another note from her about Skeeter:

“He turned 16 on the 11th of August but still acts like he’s 6!  He does sometimes play the senior’s card to get a pick up on walks but that’s ok.  He does own ME after all :-)”

<3

Ps – She said she’s going to try to get a “doppelgänger” pic for me too of Skeeter with his painting! So excited!!

A few days ago I got to meet Boober & Snugs in person after getting to paint them on a custom 14″x7″ canvas! Their mum snapped this adorable photo of them just moments later and texted it to me right away which I thought was cute 🙂 – What excellent little picture posers these pups are, oh my goodness!! Love it.

In addition to the painting, they were each done in Sketch Ornament form as well:

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Last week, this adorable little fellow’s painting was given as a surprise birthday gift from daughter to mother over in New Brunswick!

A couple of days later, I received this very sweet note on my Facebook Art Page:

“The painting is a spitting image of him. It’s the best birthday gift I ever received. The likeness of my dog is unbelievable really. Will always cherish it, even made arrangements for my daughter to take care of it if something happens to me… You got his personality in the painting for sure….he is the little boy I never had haha! Your work is awesome keep up the good work to make people happy as I was on the weekend….Great work Robyn again THANKS!”

Big thanks to Nikko’s “sister” for coordinating this gift 🙂 , and for Nikko’s “mum” for taking the time out of her birthday weekend so send me such a thoughtful message! <3

I had the pleasure of painting this very handsome boy recently.

A tight-knit group of friends at Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS) had planned this special memento as a surprise gift for one of their crew, after the sudden & tragic passing of her dog Dexter. I found out that it was given a couple days ago, so I am able to share pix here 🙂 . I hope that this portrait can bring smiles & happy memories to Dex’s mum for years to come <3

To view a full image of this painting, please visit my Pet Portrait Portfolio page.

For a while now I’ve been tinkering with new styles for my “Pets-A-Sketch” line of original drawings… and I’m excited to finally get to unveil the new styles!! 🙂

Effective immediately, I now offer my Pets-A-Sketch original drawings in the following three options –

“Original” – Black ink on White paper:

“Vintage” – Brown ink on Kraft paper:

“Splash of Colour” – Black ink on White paper, with Watercolour accents:

All Pets-A-Sketch drawings are one-of-a-kind and done with artist quality, archival safe, high end inks / papers / paints. They are sold individually, and come unframed in a protective clear sleeve. Each is signed & dated on the back, lightly in pencil. Since they are all hand-drawn freehand, each one is totally unique!

These are usually done in a 5×7 format (as shown above), but 8×10 versions are also possible. Plus I am open to doing larger custom sizes too! Please contact me for pricing & ordering timelines.

PS – What do you think of the 2 new options (“Vintage” & “Splash of Colour”)?? Do you have a favourite style out of the three versions? I’d love to hear 🙂

PPS – These new sketch options are now available in seasonal Ornament form too! Check them out HERE.

A couple weeks ago this sweetie’s Pet Portrait painting headed home as a surprise birthday gift from girlfriend to boyfriend. This is Peter, and he is a Valley Bulldog (Boxer / Bulldog cross). My client met with me a couple days before her bf’s bday to pick up the painting, and she told me she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to wait til his actual birthday to gift it lol!! That sounds soooo familiar (… I totally do that too, lol). So it was no surprise when she emailed me later that night that she couldn’t wait any longer, and took a bunch of adorable pictures of Peter with his painting already!! Love it:

Sending happy birthday wishes to Peter’s dad, & thanks so much again J for these adorable “doppelgänger” pix 🙂

To view a full image of the finished painting, please visit my Pet Portrait Portfolio page.

I’m excited to announce my newest retailer for my greeting cards –  Muttley Crüe Organics in Calgary! At this time I now have 26 Pet Art Card designs to choose from, and they have every single one of them there 🙂 .

About them:
Muttley Crüe is a Calgary based groomer and open-concept dog boarding/daycare company, with an emphasis on organics / supporting local / and having as little of a carbon footprint as possible. They are even powered by Bullfrog Renewable Energy! Their motto is: “Helping reduce Calgary’s carbon paw print one stay, play and groom at a time!”. The owner & staff are quite involved with various animal charities, including local Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society. They recently re-located to a larger brand new facility, and in addition to their grooming/boarding services they offer collars & other fun local / organic merchandise in store. They are located at:  620 46 Ave NE, Calgary, AB. For more info on them you can check out there website at www.muttleycrue.ca.

They were so sweet and posted a pic of my card display to their Instagram account when I dropped off the cards yesterday:

A photo posted by Muttley Crüe Organics (@muttleycrueyyc) on Sep 2, 2015 at 1:22pm PDT

(If you’re having trouble viewing the image, you can view it on Instagram HERE.)

Thanks so much MC!

Earlier this month, a custom Pet Portrait was given as a belated birthday gift between good friends. This painting was also ordered as a special memorial piece, since sadly their doggie had passed away earlier in the year too 🙁 .

My client selected this specific reference photo as it was taken in her friend & Mattie’s favourite spot! So we opted to include the rock detail in the background because it is so sentimental to them. I knew going in that this background was going to be a challenge, but I am very excited with the outcome!

Hoping this painting can bring Mattie’s dad happy memories of his sweet girl & their favourite spot, for years to come. <3

To view the full painting image, please visit my Pet Portrait Portfolio Page.