
A recipient of one of my paintings contacted me asking if I could paint her friend’s puppy as a gift. She had a few photos and wasn’t sure which would be the best one to paint. This is totally normal – I rarely have clients who know exactly what image they want painted! I asked her to send me her favorites and I would help her whittle them down. We ended up picking one and during subsequent conversations, I discovered that this image would hang in her friend’s lake house. I decided to emphasize the lake background that was in one of the other images as well as give the pup a more relaxed open-mouthed smile since this was a happy place.
I painted the image, got approval from the client that it was acceptable (well, technically the response was, “THAT LOOKS AMAZING!!!! She is going to DIE!” and while I don’t particularly want my painting recipients to pass away, I thought that was a positive response.), and sent the file to my vendor to be professionally printed on high quality canvas and stretched.


