Traditional media animal art

Still digging through my old art files, and there's plenty more digital stuff floating around but I also have my traditional work stored in there. And most of that is animals! There's not as much of it, because I don't have good space to do it and it's much more expensive over time to buy canvas and paint and brushes. Plus clean up is a chore with oils.

I'll start with some of the most recent ones I've done, the tiny 2x2 canvases I did for various zookeepers I've worked with over the years. These are specific animal portraits, and because of their size, didn't take nearly as long as a larger canvas, maybe 5-10 hours total with initial sketch time. These are acrylic, and due to the size of the canvas, you can see the texture of the canvas a lot better than you would in a large piece.

Sassy the raccoon
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Roddy the goat
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Elvira the red fox
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Beatrice the coyote
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Jacob the mountain lion
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Jaybird the blue jay
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Lightning the donkey
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Franklin the red footed tortoise
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Cassandra the ring-tail lemur
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A red wolf (they didn't have names, only numbers)
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A hatchling pine snake
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Gus the black bear
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Virginia the black bear
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Jill wrote:

Virginia the black bear
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ahh you are very talented Jill ! thank you for sharing these wonders
there is so much animation in every painting here, their eyes are all alive and that takes talent :)

Most of all I really love Virginia, the angle and colours of her are beautiful. The keeper is lucky to have this painting.

I used to paint aceo watercolours and sell them. Have you ever tried that ?

They are gorgeous ! WOW

I could not possibly say which one(s) I love most, because they are perfect all of them !!!!

Thankyou for shring. Looking at these pictures make me very happy

Thank you both so much!  

sunny wrote:

I used to paint aceo watercolours and sell them. Have you ever tried that ?

I have done ATCs before, just a couple of times, but never an ACEO for sale. I am not productive enough to actually sell them. After trying to live off commissions for a year, I discovered this wasn't an interest I wanted to monetize after all. For me, art was best kept as a hobby to do whatever I felt like whenever I felt like, without pressure to have it succeed and make money. Do you have yours here anywhere? I would love to see them! Watercolor is so beautiful, and so challenging.

Next chunk of pictures: I've done a number of larger animal portraits as well, mostly horses. My senior exhibition in college was horses, mostly because I was so burnt out that was the only thing I could manage. I did a series in oil and a series in charcoal for that exhibit. I don't love them now. Like I said, I was hugely burnt out and resorted to simply reproducing photographs by the artist Bob Langrish. This was very lazy of me! But here they are, all the same:

This one is huge, over four feet tall. My favorite ultimately. I cropped the original photo significantly, and while it's still not "original" it feels a little more so. Unfortunately, it was a canvas I built myself, and it ended up warping pretty badly. I don't know where this painting is now. It was donated to a fundraising auction for a facility that is now closed.  
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This one is hanging in my parent's house, which is also for the time being my house, so I get to see it a lot, ha. I have over time found every mistake in it! But I can be kinder to it now after so much time, and I can see what I like about it as well. Mainly the way I handled the paint and the palette. There are many anatomy problems that I feel less forgiving toward. This one is also large, about four feet long.
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The other oil paintings from that exhibition were very bad!! I don't even have images of them anymore.   The charcoal series went a little better, but again, they were just replications of photographs someone else took which is in general fine for making art for yourself, but not for something that was meant to showcase me as an artist and my growth and direction. And not a great idea for selling, either. The intellectual property lines are a little fuzzy . . .

My friends own this one.
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This one also went home with some family friends, but I don't see them anymore, so I don't know where it is now.
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This one hung in my old highschool for years as an example of alumni doing things, and then someone offered me money for it and I said, sure thing!  
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Honestly have no idea where this drawing is or who has it . . .
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These three are all hanging in my house. My parents have mostly my art up, which is very kind of them, but I would like to maybe see some other artists, too.   The last two are actually MY photos, of horses I knew and worked with (Tea Biscuit and Tonka), so there's that!
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Here is another painting from school, back when I was a fresher student. I really like this one. It, too, hangs in my house. It's acrylic rather than oil.
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These are gorgeous (I somehow missed the first batch, today's reply brought the topic back to the top of the list), I really admire how you handle the paint to show the light and shade, those crisp lines of shadow are something I never did tackle but admire hugely in anyone who can make them work - they give the work a very professional look, realistic without losing the painterly quality. The przewalski's grooming are my favourites, but also the mare and foal with all their brilliant patches

Thank you! Shadows really make or break a lot of compositions, but all credit to good shadow placement goes to Langrish in a lot of these instances. A good photograph makes, of course, a nice painting to look at if you are good at translating an image to another medium.

After school, I tried my hand at making a living with art by doing commission pet portraits. What I learned from that experience was that I hated doing it, ha! I had good and bad clients, but it didn't matter, I didn't like feeling the pressure of completing something to someone else's standard, even if I didn't like what they were aiming for. It sucked the joy I got from painting away. I also am very bad at time management when I am my own boss, and REALLY bad at finances, so all in all it was a learning experience that definitively taught me I had majored in something I couldn't do for a living, free lance at least. But here are a few of the commissions I did in that period (not many - I was also bad at drumming up business).

These cats were for the same couple. They were a lovely pair of clients, and I hope they are still enjoying these memorial portraits. These are charcoal, and pretty large.
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This little papillion was for a friend of ours, which is actually one of the worst kinds of clients to have (though she is a lovely person - it's just hard to do business with friends). This is colored pencil and pastel.
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This one was the worst one, the client commissioned me and it was a slow, slow process to get settled on what she wanted. I started the painting, she drifted in and out contact with me, and then I traveled overseas for 16 months. I was unable to get her to pay for and pick up the painting before I left. When I got back, she was no longer interested in buying the finished painting and "ghosted" me. I still have the painting, and none of the money. Always get a down payment, kids! I don't even want the painting because it's HUGE(!!) and she chose a terrible composition. Ugh.
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But I also sprinkled in a few portraits that were not commissioned, just for fun or for gifts.

This one is my childhood, dog, Otis. The composition is off because I originally intended to include more of his body, and then did not. Despite that, one of the better animal portraits I have.
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The only image I have of this is tiny, and it's a pretty small painting to begin with, but this one is one of my favorites. A gift to my friend with the fjord farm, one of her geldings, Loki.
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And another of the same friend's horses, but she doesn't have this one because I didn't like it well enough to give it to her.  
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Two horses I worked with at a summer camp, Glory and Raider. This one actually sold out of an art gallery I was a member of for a little while, the only thing I sold the entire time I was there.
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And a horse that lived at the rescue I worked at. I can't remember his name, because I worked in the therapeutic riding portion of the place, and he lived in the horse rescue portion, and I just snapped this picture one day. I like it alright, but I think the angle he is holding his head at looks weird as a painting, like his neck is a bit broken . . .
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My betta fish, Simon. He lived a pretty rough life, really, because I didn't know anything about good betta care at the time, but gosh I loved that fish!! This one is hanging in my room still.
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Wow, how did I miss all of this amazing, amazing art!! Beautiful portraits, I really loved your digital art and now I see you can do both to a really high standard! I love them all, especially the cat commissions, they look so real and the contrasting areas of light and dark just bring them to life! And your pug is amazing, eyes are so hard to get right but I can only dream of achieving that realism! Your horses are all stunning as well, I find it so hard working on a large scale but yours are so professional!
The reason I am so glad to have found this is that I also have a big passion for art/ animal (dog!) portraiture! And I was really interested to read about your experiences taking commissions as that is something I am currently on-off doing but plan to try and do more of once exams are over! How frustrating to have a couple of tricky clients, and I can imagine the pressure of trying to create something good enough for someone else's expectations. Anything I've done so far has been for kind friends and family but I can see this being a problem with people I don't know! You did so many as well during that time, one of the problems I have found is how to advertise and things! But yes, just full of admiration for your work, something beautiful to aspire to!

Thank you Bonnie! That's kind of you to say, I don't feel my collected works are very professional because my long breaks between mean the quality varies quite widely. But the artist is always their own worst critic.

Bonnie wrote:

The reason I am so glad to have found this is that I also have a big passion for art/ animal (dog!) portraiture! And I was really interested to read about your experiences taking commissions as that is something I am currently on-off doing but plan to try and do more of once exams are over! How frustrating to have a couple of tricky clients, and I can imagine the pressure of trying to create something good enough for someone else's expectations. Anything I've done so far has been for kind friends and family but I can see this being a problem with people I don't know! You did so many as well during that time, one of the problems I have found is how to advertise and things! But yes, just full of admiration for your work, something beautiful to aspire to!

I wish you a lot of luck in the world of commissions. I had MUCH better luck when I did small commissions within the My Little Pony collecting community, as trades for models. That was less stressful than working with strangers for real money for artwork that would hang in their house, haha. However, you've probably got a much better head for business than I did. My best advice is the down payment advice - for your security and theirs. And always charge what your art is worth. We tend to undersell ourselves when we don't consider ourselves "professionals", but there is a good balance between "high art" prices and prices that will make your client feel less respectful toward your time and energy. I tended to charge by the square inch, about $1.50/square inch for acrylic and oil on canvas, and variations of that for other media, but I know there is good advice out in the world about pricing art.

Advertising for me was a lot of word of mouth. If you have social media, use that, but I have found that people with pets who see portraits of pets ask those people where it was done if they like it, so encourage your friends, family, and clients to let people know if they ask that they are taking commissions. Have business cards or at the very least an easy thing for them to pass on like a phone number or email for people to contact you. Some of my friends would tell ME about the people, and then I reached out to THEM, which was more stressful for me but also got the job done and I think was reassuring to the people asking for the commission. I also had a spot in that art gallery like I said, but that did not drum up an ounce of business for me and was expensive, so consider those avenues very carefully. If you are a part of any online communities (even like this one), that's also how I got my name spread around. People in the MLP community knew I also did pets and would sometimes seek me out (that's how the cat portraits got done).

I hope you have only excellent experiences doing portraits! You a very talented artist, I have seen, so no doubt you can do well if you get the word out there. :)

Thank you so much! I'm always so critical of my own art too!
And thank you for all this information and advice, I love learning from other artists and their experiences and your tips are so useful because they are all based off your own experiences which is always the best lesson! I will certainly remember all this for the future, as business can certainly be confusing when it comes to pricing/ advertising and all the rest!

The last of what was in that file! Not all the animal artwork I have done, but a good chunk of it. Not sure where the rest went. Mostly random wildlife, done at different points.

One of my favorite paintings I have done, Shalimar one of the gray wolves that used to live at the zoo where I work. Those are her paw prints, taken during an annual exam when she was sedated. This painting was sold at auction for a fundraiser for our facility.
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An Cody, her partner. I don't like this one quite as well, something about the eyes are a bit . . . lopsided, but it came out nice enough. This was a gifted to the director of the fund raising arm of the facility. These are both acrylic.
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Another gray wolf, not one I know, just a pretty popular image on Google! I was trying to do a "sketch a day" and made, like, four, hahaha.
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Here's another "sketch a day"
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A red fox - no real context for this one!
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And a white-tailed buck
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A colored pencil Grizzly
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And a couple of horses I worked with at the therapy center, done more as compositional studies than portraits. Willow and Sinatra.
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Last but not least, one of the only watercolor animals I have ever managed! (The others were dogs, and I don't know where those images got to . . . .) This is watercolor combined with colored pencil.
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Gorgeous works! You are so talented! I absolutely adore the howling wolf

Same, she is my favourite of the batch, the pose is lovely and the paw prints make it so personal as a portrait rather than just a wolf. But the snail is so sweet, too, and the pencils add a level of definition and control which is so difficult with watercolour alone.

These are beautiful once again and I too love the touch of the pawprints for the wolf! Your sketches are wonderful too, so realistic- and the snail watercolour looks so professional, wow!

I love the wolves (Shalimar is also my favorite, and what a wonderful personalization with the pawprints), but that snail is just too cool. You are very talented!

Thank you everyone! The wolf and the snail are my favorites of this line up as well.

Jill wrote:

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this is Stunning !! love everything about it :)
I am sure it is proudly on display somewhere

Jill wrote:

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your paintings are excellent Jill !!
to combine the real paw prints - and even those of WILD wolves!!! is superb !!
I cannot stress enough how Unique this is in the art world - you should consider selling prints (or downloads) of these online. I am sure there are many many wolf fanatics who would love to have these gracing their rooms.

Your handling of shadows and light and 'unusual' body angles is exceptional. There is a strong sense of presence and a high level of energy in all your paintings. Even the sedentary ones.


Bonnie - I've sold commissions for a while, in watercolours. Like Jill says, price yourself accordingly, but never under price yourself. When I did commissions I didn't take deposits, as I never sold online so I always got to talk to the person. A couple of times I had to readjust aspects of the painting as the customer wasn't that happy (haha), but in the end I managed to paint something they felt worthy of paying the gallery-going-price for. I just looked at galleries and what they charged for paintings that were in a style/size similar to mine and I plonked that price on it.
So, the customer was paying for 'quality', but only as long as I could deliver it. (not always the case but that's life - just be easy on yourself and try and stop the judgement.)

A lot of artists will also be your customers as well. As artists can truly appreciate another artist at work.

Thank you so much, Sunny, for your kind words and insight! These are the only copies of those paintings I have, unfortunately far too small to do any reprinting of, but thank you! :)

sunny wrote:

Bonnie - I've sold commissions for a while, in watercolours. Like Jill says, price yourself accordingly, but never under price yourself.  When I did commissions I didn't take deposits, as I never sold online so I always got to talk to the person. A couple of times I had to readjust aspects of the painting as the customer wasn't that happy (haha), but in the end I managed to paint something they felt worthy of paying the gallery-going-price for. I just looked at galleries and what they charged for paintings that were in a style/size similar to mine and I plonked that price on it.
So, the customer was paying for 'quality', but only as long as I could deliver it. (not always the case but that's life - just be easy on yourself and try and stop the judgement.)

A lot of artists will also be your customers as well. As artists can truly appreciate another artist at work.

Thank you so much for your insights too! Yes, that sounds like the best idea- using the prices of other similar works of art for your own! And definitely, I'm sure other artists would be the best customers!

These are fantastic! Such detail on a tiny canvas!