Pet Portraits by Diane Shabino

This is my Pet Portrait Gallery showing pet portraits I have done of animals from photograhs in transparent watercolor media. I am available for commissioned pet portraits and will work with you via email (or snail mail as necessary) to capture the look of your pet in watercolor. Painting portraits of well-loved pets is particularly enjoyable and rewarding.  Every pet is special and each has a personality that needs to be captured along with the physical likeness of the pet. See Pet Portrait Photography Tips to help capture that special look in your pet that you want portrayed.

I enjoy capturing the personalities of my subjects both the animate, people and pets, and the inanimate, cars, trucks, flowers, caps, hats and just about any subject.  Portraits are often more challenging than just painting the physical likeness of the subject.  Since I can only paint what I can see, quality photographs with ample detail are imperative and must reflect the personality, look or mood of the subject as well.  Digital photographs work especially well, as I can enlarge and zoom in to capture details that might not be apparent in a smaller snapshot, though, these are often usable, especially if accompanied with the negative for enlargements.

I create my portrait and still life paintings with transparent watercolor media using high quality Schminke and Winsor & Newton watercolors on d'Arches watercolor papers.  The challenge in rendering with watercolors is to capture the spontaneity of the medium and yet create a realistic representation of the subject. This is even more challenging when you consider that most mistakes can not be changed, scrubbing the paper surface also damages it, creating a dead area, without luminosity.  For transparent watercolors to read well, the paint lays over the white of the paper allowing light to reflect through the paint to the white paper and back, if you damage the paper and the paint is absorbed into the paper, this no longer happens and the scrubbed area will not blend with the rest of the painting.  So mistakes in watercolor are opportunities to learn and start over.  The transparency and luminosity of watercolor is unique and this immediacy sets it apart from other painting and drawing mediums.

Most of my watercolor portrait and still life compositions are very simple because a realistic representation of the subject is my main concern, particularly in the people portraits and the pet portraits as well as the old cars and trucks and other still life subjects. I try to create compelling and interesting compositions that accentuate and enhance the subject though not particularly complex compositionally.