A Home, a Haven, my custom portrait of a house full of Love in Atlanta

House Portrait with Custom Pet Portraits of Cats

This is a story of a house portrait, custom cat portraits and a lot of love.  Every portrait I do, I kinda of just get immersed in, but this one was really special.

When I received the order for a portrait of this home, there were a lot of special details and I had the pleasure of getting to speak in depth with the human occupant!  What a lovely person!  Her home, you see, not only is her sanctuary, but is a haven for lots and lots of cats, one feral!

And a centerpiece for her pretty flower gardens, which included a bird feeder for the wild birds who come to call at a place full of love.

We also included the American flag, and all those beautiful, sheltering trees!  I was almost sad to send this off, as I knew that our collaboration of her vision and my painting meant that we'd kind of go our separate ways.  But this house, and the beautiful soul who occupies it with the creatures who need her, will always be special to me!

House Portrait Painting, a big shot of whimsical fun!

Home Portrait Watercolor and Ink with Dog

I am enjoying drawing and painting portraits of houses! I like to make a house look like a home and personalized it.  This watercolor and ink home portrait has a little dog on the porch!  He's not exactly to scale, but especially with a more fun and whimsical style, I really don't HAVE to have him be the right size, right?

I love playing with the foliage, I'm now dropping the greens on wet, then after they dry, picking out the variations to outline in ink.

The knock out roses in the front were not in bloom in my reference photos, but luckily I have them in my backyard garden, next to my gazebo where I do most of my artwork in nice weather.

The only problem I have with this, is it makes me want to get out some wood and carve a wood block.  I might just.

Custom House Portrait, with dogs!

House Portrait Painting, Philadelphia Area Artist Robin Zebley

Can you see the dogs waiting at the door in this house portrait I just did?  They are almost a cartoon since the portrait itself is only 8 x 10 (and I cut part of it off to show you the dogs better!).  Even though I live between Philadelphia and Wilmington, this house is in Alabama.  I could never do this if it weren't for the internet and the USPS!

I inked this to mimic my woodblock printing style a bit, then hand colored it with watercolors.

I think houses have personality, too, and I love architecture.  But I hadn't offered house portraits because all of the samples I saw were so...cold, clinical, precise, engineering-ish.  So I needed to think about doing things in my own style.  I am not now and never will be a precise painter!

So I did a sample and put it up on Etsy, then I got one request, that led to more, I still have only done a handful, but have several in my queue!  And guess what, almost all of them want a pet in the window.

Now I need to figure out how to really market these.  I do them in oils, too, but I kind of like this style best.  I think I'm really going to pump up the black "woodcut" effect on the next one. 

Any ideas of marketing them, I would really appreciate!   I've had people tell me to hit up realtors, and my most recent is a wedding present.  So I have to think about that, but meanwhile, I'm enjoying mixing it up, doing the pets one day, a house the next!  Hope you enjoy!  Robin

A Snapshot of My Pet Portraits

Pet Portraits by Me, Philadelphia Area Artist, Robin Zebley

Here's a little sampling of my pet portraits, I made a treasury of them on Etsy in my Vintage Shop to show my visitors the other side of my life!  It shows up in my profile.

It's not clickable, so if you'd like to see it "live", click ---> Pet Portraits!

It's funny how I look at these and remember little details about what I was doing and what time of the year, the client who commissioned it, and the animals themselves but never the names!  Except for my own Sarge who is 3rd, second row, I have no idea what these pets are named.  I do remember the little girl on the bottom because she is a niece of mine, isn't she a doll? 

So, gearing up for the busy Christmas Portrait season ahead, and looking back down memory lane at just a few of the precious faces I've been honored to capture in portrait.  Many of them were gifts, and I also remember the beautiful emails I've received from the recipients.  It's how I know for a fact that it's a most treasured gift and one they will love forever!  I am so honored to be a part of that exchange of love!  Robin

Pitbull Portrait - A Beautiful Rescue Dog with Such an Expressive Face!

Here's a portrait of a pitbull dog, a commission from his super rescuer who fostered this guy as a gift for the forever home mom.  Now, how could anyone NOT love this face? But pitbulls do have a bad rep, and not always deserved!   I enjoyed working on him, with those soulful eyes just looking right back at me.  I love his coloring, don't you?    Now, this week in our local news, I read about a pitbull who was a hero, she stuck like glue to a 2 year old toddler who unlocked the front door and went wandering along a busy road.  The pit kept the child out of harms way while cars whizzed by, until someone finally saw him from his business across the street and scooped the baby up for safety.  But the baby WAS in "Nana's" care!  

What was interesting is that the newspaper didn't identify the pitbull as a pitbull.  She was an "Am Staff mix".  Uh, huh.  You can bet your bottom dollar if the dog had growled or bit, no matter how much or how little pit was in her, they would have had a headline "Pitbull attack".  But since THIS dog was a hero, it couldn't POSSIBLY be a pitbull, now could it?  :D

Oh, well, those of us who love pits and have them in our families know just how loyal and loving they can be with good raising.  Dogs are like children.  They have the potential for good AND evil, and while "nature" plays a part, "nuture", in the way of good parenting, makes the difference.  Children can be neglected and abused and uncared for and undisciplined and "turn out" wild and evil.  Same with dogs. The "bad" humans have guns, the "bad" dogs have teeth.  It makes just as much (or little) sense to hate kids because SOME of them, not raised properly, will turn out evil.  But whole communities want to ban pitbulls because of how THEY were NOT raised.  And look at this guy....he is a sweetheart!

Anyway, off my soapbox, as most of you know, my Otto is an 11 year old pitbull boxer mix, and if my community tried to ban pits, I would move in a heartbeat rather than give him up.  Of course, Otto is a fabulous ambassador for the breed, and our long daily walks give him lots of opportunity to prove how wonderful pitbulls are.  But more on that in another post.

Thanks for stopping by!  All my contact info is on the right and I hope you'll contact me soon if you are interested in a portrait of your OWN special dog!  I do portraits of humans, all animals, houses, and NOW, even Harley Davidsons.  I'll be showing you that portrait as soon as it's all done.

Robin

A HOUSE Portrait? Yep, a house portrait!

Last year, I got a request to paint this cute rowhouse in South Philly which was for a Christmas gift.  How hard could a house be?  Harder than I thought!  Making sure everything was in proportion, prospective, squared up right, the right distance...a little math-y for me.  I could have traced it, but that seemed weird, I would have gone crazy tracing all those bricks and THEN painting them in.

Lucky for me, my honey is a former billboard painter who had lots of tricks up his sleeve for laying out pictorials, and he shared them with me.  Actually, I use a lot of little sign painter's tricks in all my artwork!

Besides the house, itself, my customer wanted flowerboxes and a filled planter.  AND a kitty!  Can you see him in the upstairs window?  I painted this on a wood panel, which made framing super easy for her.

I used acrylic paint, which was really fun with the curtains.  After I painted the insides of the windows almost black, I just thinned white way down on my palette and next to that, a big blob of white right from the tube.  I dipped a squared off brush into the thin wash and picked up some of the thick on just one corner and painted the folds of the curtains.  The thin paint made them look gauzy, and the thick made the folds, all in one action. 

Now, that is a trick I picked up from my "decorative" painting days.  Years ago, I played with decorative country painting.  I painted hundreds of geese and old fashioned Santas, etc.  It gave me confidence that I could develop the skills to do unique pieces, rather than the factory-like churning out of identical (but well-selling!) pieces following patterns.

The bricks were a challenge.  I tried painting the mortar, but couldn't get it thin enough or regular enough with a brush.  I experimented with my beloved colored pencil and that worked great over the dried acrylic.  So this is a mixed media piece!  The trick was making the mortar straight...but not too straight.  I took a piece of straight cardboard and dinged it up and carved just a tad of a curve here and there and used that to make my lines.  I moved it a little each time.

So, lots of tricks on this one!  I think it makes a great gift and I know the recipient of this one loved it!  Hope you do too!
I'm artist, Robin Zebley, writing about my art and how I create it here on my blog.  Here's my pet portrait site, lots of samples and details about how to commission a portrait of a pet, child or HOUSE!  Join my Facebook Art Page !  Lots of updates and occasional contests and giveaways.  Thanks for visiting, and if you want to read my most current post, just click on the banner at the top!  Robin