Robyn Millar

A childhood friend of mine’s mom got in touch with me to do a portrait of their family dog Jasmine, who’s a Collie cross. She planned to gift the painting to her husband as a surprise for his birthday last week which I thought was very sweet!

Sadly, about two weeks prior to them receiving the painting, Miss Jazz crossed over the rainbow bridge 🙁 . She would have been 16 in August I’m told, but I know she had a good life and the most loving parents/family a pup could ask for. Hoping the painting can help bring a little ray of sunshine & happy memories of their sweet girl, today and always.

A wonderful couple has been commissioning me to paint their pets (2 down, 1 to go!), and then asked if I could paint a custom tree piece with their initials after seeing my custom R+N set earlier in the year. So we confirmed the canvas size, and they let me know that they’d like it to say W+G, and left the rest up to me! So the font & letter size, whether to include a heart or not like my other custom initials pieces, the background colour, etc. See with custom art orders usually sketches are requested to get the basic layout of what it’ll look like, but then the odd time you get a customer that wants you to wing it & for it to be a surprise to them. Which is super fun of course! Here are some close up pix of the finished painting, all done in acrylic on canvas:

Before I started painting full time, I had worked for an Interior Designer for 7 years while I worked on paintings in my spare time – so it’s instinctual for me to consider client’s homes colour palettes when creating a custom piece. Since this client is a return customer, and was so sweet and sent me a photo of their pet portraits hung on their family picture collage wall before, I had a good idea of their colour scheme. Advantage Millar muhuhahaha 😀 ! At first I thought a deep rusty red colour would be good for the background, but with their warm paint colour and rust/brown accents I thought it’d blend in a little too well. So my 2nd choice became the obvious 1st choice, and I went with a fresh leafy green!

True to form, my client sent me a kind note & a photo of the painting hung up in their home right away. I love it!

Looks like the perfect spot to me!! Thanks so much again W+G 🙂

PS – If you would like your very own tree painting with custom initials, please feel free to get in touch & I’m happy to help!

I haven’t written an ‘On A Personal Note’ post in quite a while, and I wanted to share some pix from a recent road trip – so figured this was the perfect time 🙂

For Father’s Day weekend I was able to head home to visit my family in BC. En route I saw a giant moody cloud that I thought looked pretty neat, so I pulled over to snap a pic. This was in or near Longview I think? Anyway, as you can imagine, many hours of driving through rain happened right after this lol:

Stormclouds a brewin’

While at my dad’s place I took some pix of my childhood cat who is now a lil old lady but still cute as ever! She is 15 and doing quite well but you just never know how long you have with pets, so just in case I gave her more cuddles than my usual already insane amount haha. And I tried to take some photos of her with my new camera – these are my favourite two snaps I got of her:

Ratty with a daisy

Still playful at 15

While in Castlegar we popped into the Kootenay Gallery for a specific book for my sis, and to take a cruise through the gift shop. We also said hello to some of my Art Cards and Modern Nostalgia mixed media paintings above the doorway there:

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Haywire’s painting was ordered as a surprise birthday gift from wife to husband. They had lost their sweet boy earlier in the year, and my client contacted me about doing a special memorial piece. It’s always so sad to know that the pet you are painting is no longer with their family, but it always makes me feel happy when I get to see their face light up seeing the painting for the first time, or to hear that it helps ease the pain of their loss in some way. It’s hard to put into words really!

Yesterday was the big painting reveal, so I am able to share a pic of this handsome kitty cat now 🙂 . To view the full image of the finished painting, please visit my Pet Portrait portfolio page.

I was contacted online by a client who was looking for an artist to create a one-of-a-kind collage style painting – one that would feature images of him and his wife and special moments in their life – as a surprise 10th wedding anniversary gift! After emailing back and forth a little and seeing examples, he confirmed that my Mixed Media series was a good fit for what he was after, so he sent me the pictures he wanted me to use & I started planning/prepping!

During the order process we were in contact often, and he let me know of any special requests right off the bat (like the larger main photo in the centre, for example), and then left me to my ‘artistic liberties’ for the majority of the piece. As the planned person I am lol, in the beginning I created a ‘mock up’ on my computer the best I could, to show the arrangement of the photos I had in mind. This helps the client visualize the approximate end result, plus… if my jewellery training had taught me anything, it’s the better the planning the smoother things come together in the end for things like this! I’m super glad we did the mock up & thrilled that the final product came to life as expected, AND that when I met my client in person to give him the finished piece he loved the final product!

This custom painting features an abstract style mixed with image transfer techniques, in acrylic paint on birch panel. Below are some closer up shots of some of my favourite spots on the piece so you can take a better peek:

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During the Xmas 2014 season I got to paint an adorable Yorkie named Johnny Cash. Recently his momma put in an order for some Pet Art Cards featuring his painting (shown below via Instagram), and she also just sent me a great doppelgänger picture (above)!! This little guy is so stinkin’ cute, oh my goodness!! <3

A photo posted by Robyn Millar (@artbyrobynmillar) on Jun 4, 2015 at 6:41pm PDT

For Johnny’s painting, picking a background colour was super easy! We immediately thought that it should be black (you know… “The Man in Black”)! And I had just recently discovered a wonderful Mat paint by Holbein that has a beautiful velvety finish, and it was perfect for the job! It softened the usual harshness of black by taking away the shine (e.g.: shiny black paint is deeper / more intense than matte black paint). I really loved the final result & hope to use this line of paint for more often.

Since the background was black I didn’t want to do my usual black edges on the painting. So for this piece I opted for a warm dark brown, which complimented the pup’s colourings & popped against the background nicely.

What do you think of the background / edge colour combo?

When my sister was taking pix of my nephew pup Bruno (as shown in my previous post), she also managed to take some snaps of him posing with his big brother Nero + his portrait that I painted a few years back (you can view Nero’s post HERE). Both boys are Staffordshire Bull Terriers (or ‘Staffy’ for short), and have the biggest smiles ever! Lil’ handsome devils.

Here’s a pic the two of them together with their paintings:

The sun was a blazin’, hence their eyes are closed, but it still cracks me up so much – I just love this pic!

If you are on Instagram & enjoy following cute doggie accounts (I’m not crazy, it’s actually a common thing on there I promise! lol!), Bruno & Nero have their own profile and their adorable factor is through the roof at all times on there. Here’s their account if you’d like to check it out:

A photo posted by Nothing Butt Staffies (@nothingbuttstaffies) on Apr 15, 2015 at 11:54am PDT

I had the pleasure of painting my adorable nephew puppy Bruno recently, and my sister took the cutest photos of him posing with his painting – I just had to share:

And one more from Instagram:

A photo posted by Robyn Millar (@artbyrobynmillar) on Apr 10, 2015 at 4:42pm PDT

If you’d like to view the full image of his painting, please check out my Pet Portrait Portfolio page.

Victoria BC & area friends – Did you know that I have a pet portrait display at Mille Fiori Spa? I’m excited to share that they now carry a selection of my Pet Art Cards as well! Five all new designs featuring pups of Victoria actually:

The lovely owner there commissioned me to paint her fur babies (Beatrix & Ozlo) about a year and a bit ago, and proudly displays them in her boutique space. When she ordered them in card form, she also requested additional cards featuring Victoria pups which is super cool! So here we have (pictured above): Beatrix (top left), Ozlo (top middle), Charlie (top right), Sully (bottom left) and Kona (bottom right).

So feel free to pop on by to check things out (they are located at 946 Meares St) and be sure to say hello to Beatrix the adorable “shop dog” (the Brussels Griffon pictured here) who often comes in with her momma 🙂

Ps – I just saw on Mille Fiori’s Facebook page that today happens to be Beatrix’s 4th birthday! So cute!