How to provide the perfect photos for your Custom Dog Portrait

Guideline 1

No amount of photos is too many photos! I mean this. Send me hundreds if you have them. Photos of your dog inside, outside, sitting, standing, lying, mouth closed, tongue out, looking up, looking to the side, looking straight at the camera, ungroomed, just out of the groomers. The more I have, the more accurate a picture I can build of the colour and texture of your dog’s fur, eye colour, etc.

Guideline 2

Take photos down at your dog’s eye level. Photos taken while you’re standing with your dog looking up do look gorgeous as photos, but they don’t transfer well into paintings, as the dogs features can be distorted and proportions can be all off.

Guideline 3

Take photos of your dog in natural light, with a relaxed face and not squinting in sunlight. This is important for the style of portrait I paint.

Guideline 4

Ideally have one “perfect photo'“ on which you would like the portrait to be based. This will have the head pose, eye direction, mouth open/closed, tongue in/out and fur length (if your dog gets groomed) that you would like to have painted.

While I can create your dog’s portrait using a combination of the hundreds of photos you’ve sent me (see Guideline 1 above), this takes a huge amount more of my time. And if the images are not of good quality, the result will not be anywhere near as accurate as it can be.

This portrait of the beautiful Black Labrador Szarek was painted using an absolutely perfect reference photo. The photographer took the photo down at Szarek’s eye level, he was relaxed, in natural light and I could clearly see every detail of his face.