• Paddy

  • Sonny

  • Hercules

  • Bertie

Examples of Photographs vs Paintings

The quality of the photograph really does effect the quality of the painting. In order to capture your pet pawfectly, I need to be able to see the direction or curls in the fur, the correct colour of the fur and eyes and all the little “imperfections” such as those crazy whiskers, moles or stray white hairs that make your gorgeous pet YOUR gorgeous pet. I want to do all my furry friends’ beautiful faces justice so, please supply a reference photo that will show off your pet’s personality perfectly. In order to ensure an accurate likeness, the head position is copied exactly so, please think about the head position in the reference photo you supply.  See below for some examples…

This is the gorgeous Elton

Elton is sitting in front of a window so there is plenty of natural light. The photo is close up enough that no substantial cropping needs to be done and therefore no detail is lost. No filter has been used either. This is a perfect reference photo!

This is the painting of Elton, commissioned as a gift

Although I could still be critical in places (I always can!), this is one of my favourite commissions and the family were simply over the moon with their painting.

This is the much missed Toby and Casper

This is a slightly unfair example as these gorgeous boys crossed the rainbow bridge many years ago and when my client saw my work he desperately wanted to commission a gift for his parents who were still struggling with their loss. We had no choice but to work from old, physical photos that were in turn photographed and the quality was not great.

This was the result!

The comments I have received from this family have been the most wonderful I have received in all my time painting portrait commissions but, it is still safe to say that this is not my best work due to the quality of photographs we were able to work from.

Here is the beautiful Luna…

Luna crossed the rainbow bridge in a tragic accident and her owners were beside themselves. They had to trawl their photo archives and sent me a few of their favourites and we settled on this one but although the light is good, the photo had to be cropped substantially and I lost a lot of detail. There is no light in the eyes and the fur direction was difficult to see.

This is the beautiful Darcy…

This is a great reference photo - again the photo is taken close up so no cropping is needed and the cat is sitting in natural light so there is no colour distortion. I always think when there is reflection in the eyes that really brings a portrait to life.

If you need any more tips on how to take a good photograph, just head over to my Blog where I have a list of tips and tricks.