Evolution of a Custom Mini Pet Portrait

Happily, I am still busy with custom pet portraits! Around Christmastime there were quite a few minis, which I must admit do make great gifts, and now I am working on a larger, 12″x12″ piece also for a gift. In today’s blog I would like to share a bit about the evolution of a mini painting. In this case it is a custom pet portrait of a cat. It is for a young lady who is giving it to her friend and roommate of her cat who has passed away in remembrance of him.
First, a bit about the history of my creating all these what I now fondly simply call “minis.” I started painting them over ten years ago when I first saw a painting of a mini beach scene on the cutest 2-1/2″ square canvas on a wooden easel for sale at LeMoyne Arts Gift Shop. Although beach scenes don’t speak to me, I felt compelled to also create a super small canvas but with a cat–my favorite subject!
Years went by and I began selling the mini cats around town, then started creating dogs and even sea life which I sold in Panacea at the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab. Fast forward to today…I now even create pigs and have tried a sunflower or two which I found to be very popular.
Shown in this particular blog, I am featuring Meatball (as I said, a painting for a young lady to give as a gift). First I print out the photos the customer provides, then I do several sketches on paper. Feeling more comfortable with the image, I sketch the cat on the small 2-1/2″ square canvas then paint the background in a bright, cheery and contrasting color. After it dries, I paint the cat and take a reference photo of it for my archives. Voila! Then I MUST take a picture upon delivering to the happy customer!
I enjoy doing these “minis” very much because they are super cute and the size makes them challenging. My current regular venue for selling these small paintings is Fat Cat Books in Railroad Square Art Park, Tallahassee but feel free to contact me for a custom pet. Thanks for checking out my blog, stay safe and stay tuned for more art news soon!


