Pet portraits are, honestly, some of my favourite commissions. Not because they’re simple, but because they don’t need to be complicated to matter. The brief is almost always the same underneath the details. Make something beautiful out of an animal someone loves.
I don’t work from a single formula here. Some of my personal work leans surreal and takes years to resolve. A painting can sit half finished in my head for a long time before I can even face working on it properly. That’s not what a pet portrait needs to be, and it shouldn’t put anyone off commissioning one. If you love your pet, that’s the only qualification the subject needs.
What I bring to a pet commission is the same grounding as everything else I do, the same thinking behind every commission I take on. Careful attention to the face and expression, looser and more expressive handling around it, because that’s genuinely how affection reads in a painting. I want the finished piece to feel like more than a copy of a photograph. Something with warmth in it, worth having on your wall for years.
If you’ve got a photo of a pet you’d like painted, get in touch and we can talk about it over a coffee, or have a look at the Pet Portrait Commission page for sizes and pricing.
Read more from the studio:
George Baker and His Dad · Why I Still Paint Commissions · On The Rite of Spring