Tucker New Pup Art

"Tucker"
© Rebecca Collins / artpaw.com

Tucker is one of several new orders that have been placed within the past few days.  I am still fine tuning his artwork. I hope to proof him very soon. I just adore those huge puppy dog eyes. The client specified that I keep the quilt in the portrait ... I always enjoy including bedding and pillows.

I am starting to get busy and with the holidays just around the corner I am happy to gear up. This is the ideal time to place your holiday pet portrait orders.

Fred & Ginger

"Fred" ( see all proofs)
© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

"Ginger ( see all proofs)
© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

 

 

Fred & Ginger will be shipping out this week. I really had a blast playing with these pups in hats. Years ago I created other projects for the same client of other pack members in hats. I love miss Ginger above, even though she is a Schnauzer she looks so much like my old Scottie girl Nessie.

 "Merlot"

"Martini"

Sweet Jetta

"Jetta" ( see all proofs)
© rebecca collins /artpaw.com

 

"Jetta" (chosen proof)
© rebecca collins /artpaw.com

 Jetta is one of several projects that I will be printing later this afternoon.  I loved working on Jetta, this part lab/ part greyhound looked like one happy girl in her original photograph.  She lived a good long life and left her humans for the rainbow bridge just this last month at the age of 12. I am very honored to have been able to create a special portrait of this sweet girl. I am also thrilled that her people chose the last fun and quirky off center image shown above for their 12 x12 print. That choice tells me that she and her people have lived life playfully and boldly. My heart goes out to them at this tough time.

"... what we have enjoyed, we can never lose ... all that we love deeply becomes a part of us." — Helen Keller

Mosaic Monday/ "Chasing Illusion"

"Chasing Illusion"
© 2011 Apryl Begay

If you are a regular reader you know that in addition to creating pet portraits I also work in mixed media mosaics. I am currently working hard to finish up several pieces for an upcoming gallery show with artists Apryl Begay and Katrina Doran. The piece above is by Apryl and it is on my hard drive because I am currently shooting our works in order to create a book that will showcase a few of our mosaics from the show and also speak to the general process of perparing for the show. 

Creating when life gets in the way:
In trying to figure out what to post and write about today I was really drawn to this work by Apryl because for me it sort of sums up the past month that I think all of us gals have had as we work away at our show projects.  Each of us have found ourselves despartely trying to create as life inserts itself with spiky barbs and all.

Chasing Illusion:
I love the image of this armless person looking back and moving forward. Today Apryl's mosaic makes me think about how when I am not creating I feel armless and yet I do constantly move forward. It is a wonderful piece because the symbols are so universal, the viewer can bring their own stories with them as they view this work. Of course it is always nice to know what the artist was thinking ...
from Apryl Begay (July 9th 2011 tresmilagros.wordpress.com):
"In my life there have been several times when I have bought into the fantasy of something only to realize later that the reality was simply cloaked in illusion.  These realizations can be very painful, but I learn from them every time."  read more

Broken Power Lines, Octopus Print, Weather

Been a challenging week! Monday night a huge tree limb fell and snapped our power line out back sending a lot of electricity surging through the entire house, popping out light bulbs and frying some appliances. Our hard drives were spared and all of the printers and computers are in good shape. It did however fry the phones and it fried my modem, so no internet for 2 days. Dan got me up and running with the web last night. YAY!  We are lucky that our surge protectors did their job. Also fortunate that the dogs were not under that limb and that we were able to get them inside before they discovered the hot live cables on the ground that would have been a certain death sentence.

It is summer in Texas and there was no breeze to bring down that limb, so I am guessing the trees may be suffering from heat related stress, I know the rest of us are. So ready for fall!

Lola is at work today packaging up Amazon orders including an Octopus print that is shipping to Austin Texas. My Amazon shop has a lot of reproduction doggy and kitty prints along with a bug and a few cephalopods. The octopus and bugs never sell as quickly is the 4 footed critters so I get very excited
when I see an order for one.  Thanks Jessica for shopping with us at Amazon.

© rebecca collins / artpaw.com
available at amazon.com

New Commercial Pet Portraits

These two lovely critters are going to be turned into signage or rather a "van wrap" for a mobile Veterinary Van Unit in South Carolina. This has been a really exciting project to work on. The client provided  high resolution stock photography which always makes my job more fun. There was no glow eye to worry with or blurry pixelation to smooth out on the images which means I could spend all of my time on the creative part of colorizing and painting. I hope to get a photo of the project once it is finalized and larger than life. 

Every year I get a handful of requests from small business owners wanting to have me create something for their business and seldom do clients understand the concept of purchasing an extended use license. I do charge a modest license fee for this type of work that is in addition to the design fee. My client on the van project totally understood about copyrights and license fees before she even came to me and she has been really terrific and professional to work with. I would love to be in her city so I can see my artwork rolling down the road some day.

Austin Addie & Velvet

"3 Italian Greyhounds" ( see all proofs)
© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

 

This trio was just a lot of fun to work on. The original photo had good resolution and what a perfect shot. As always I showed my client some tame proofing options, medium bold options and really bold options. This one is from the really bold group.