Commissioned Portrait: Winnie, 2025
Meet Winnie and Lambie, or one of her many Lambies, just giving you her best soft brown-eyed look. I love portraits that are quirky and honest, and if Winnie carried her Lambie around all the time, then that’s what her portrait should reflect even if you can’t see a lot of her face.
She is 11 x 15 in soft pastels with a cool gray-violet background to show off her warm brown eyes and warm highlights in her fur. I do know black animal fur pretty well and seeing and capturing the deep warm tones in the shadows made up of reds and purples and cool highlights in blues and greens are very important in building the length and lay of the fur. Her fur is longish and thick, and doubled in areas like the neck, tail and backs of her legs to keep them insulated in mountain weather. The long drapy fur around Winnie’s eyes is silky and deep while the short fur covering her muzzle is almost like a texture rather than fur but still needs the same color build in shadows and highlights. The long feathers on her chest have that layer of undercoat that appears grayish and plushy. I loved working my way over and over her fur until the color build gave it enough dimension.
Lambie, on the other hand, is a fleecy stuffie that she loves, and having that contrasting nearly featureless toy front and center of the portrait required just as much detail as Winnie herself. The challenge of light-colored curly fleece is interesting and I worked the shadows between the fleecy bits too dark at first but it turned out to be easier to back off than the get the right tones in the first place.
Winnie’s portrait was a birthday gift for the husband. I love surprise portraits. Winnie’s person sent me plenty of photos of Winnie with and without Lambie, photos of just Lambie, and then as I worked detail photos of each of them if I needed one.
Winnie’s story
In June 2025 at the Unity Church Blessing of the Animals I was set up right next to Great Pyrenees rescue. I like big dogs, especially the ones who tend to be a big, quiet presence like Pyrenees. I really made friends with a white Pyr with some black spots who kept coming over to my tent and checking on me.
I also met Winnie and her person at that event because she had adopted Winnie from that rescue and stopped by to say hello. The rescue specializes in Great Pyrenees and also rescues other giant breeds from all over.
Winnie was rescued from a farm in Virginia, estimated about six years old. The giant dog breeds tend to see 10 years as an average life span, so Winnie was going into her senior years at that age. Depending on her life on the farm, and the need to be rescued, she might also have health issues. Her person said she and her husband knew Winnie had orthopedic issues but nothing specific.
“Shortly after getting her, she started limping badly and all the subsequent xrays showed both CCL (cranial cruciate ligament) joints were torn, resulting in to TPLO (tibial plateau leveling osteotomy) surgeries,” her person said. “Also her hips were bad and the left hip was dislocated during the second TPLO surgery. After a two week wait for her leg to get a bit stronger, she had a hip replacement,” she continued. “All of this was in the first six months we had her.” The surgeries were in 2023.
No complaints from her people or from Winnie apparently. “She is living a dream life, spoiled beyond words,” she said. “She’s a super slow walker, generally a lazy girl.”
And Winnie has a dream job too. “She loves absolutely everyone and everything she sees. She and I visit hospice patients together and she makes everyone in the nursing home smile.”
“Sweetest girl we’ve ever had,” she added.
Painting the portrait under interesting circumstances
I painted this portrait August 2025. Mr. Max had been increasingly ill during August and I was also getting ready for my exhibit and being the vendor coordinator for Rock the Quarry. I set things up in the studio to paint the portrait but couldn’t get started, I just couldn’t focus. Mr. Max had not been eating but started on the chemo-type medication on the second day of Rock the Quarry; when I came home at about 1:30 a.m. after tearing down and packing up he had eaten ALL the food after that first dose.
I had until Tuesday to finish the portrait so I basically had Sunday and Monday to paint. She would bring a frame and I would fit the portrait into it right then. I started the portrait the next day, Sunday, bouyed on by Mr. Max’s change in health and activity, working in the studio constantly with Mr. Max and Morty who were such good boys, no walking on pastels or knocking anything down, happy with my dusty hands when I took a break to pet them, and took time for a back yard break for Mr. Max. I regularly sent update photos to Winnie’s person and made changes needed.
I don’t like to work under stress, I love what I do and want to enjoy it and I want to bring that to the painting, especially a commissioned portrait. I want to love my subject and feel no stress or resentment, and be happy with my work and to hand over the painting the person anticipated. Even though time was short, the portrait was fairly large which meant more detail in the subject, so more time. I reminded myself to be patient with all the layering of colors and blending and finally working down to the details, and it was all worth it for the final portrait, for Winnie and her person and the gift to her husband.
I was ready with the portrait when she arrived on Tuesday morning. I fitted it into the frame and she would wrap it. Whew! Mr. Max and I had a few more days though we didn’t know that at the time, and I will always feel he and Morty were part of my being able to focus and finish Winnie’s portrait in record time.
Read about other Commissioned Portraits and Featured Artwork
I also feature artwork which has not been commissioned, especially my paintings of my own cats. If you’d like to read more about artwork as I develop it, about my current portraits and art assignments and even historic portraits and paintings, I feature commissioned portrait or other piece of artwork on Wednesday. Choose the categories featured artwork.
Take a look at other portraits and read other stories
Read articles on The Creative Cat featuring current and past commissioned portraits.
Read about how I create commissioned portraits.
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Visit my website to see portraits of my cats, commissioned cats, commissioned dogs, people and a demonstration of how I put a portrait together from photos.
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I offer gift certificates for portraits in any denomination beginning at $50.00, which is the basic cost of a small monochromatic portrait.
The certificate itself is 8.5″ x 11″ and features a collage of portrait images with the recipient’s and giver’s names, printed on parchment cover stock. The whole thing is packaged in a pocket folder and includes a brochure, a letter from me to the recipient and several business cards.The certificate package can be easily mailed or wrapped as a gift and shipped directly to your recipient.
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Certificates are good for up to one year after issue.
You can purchase gift certificates here or from Portraits of Animals if you are also purchasing other animal-inspired merchandise.
I prefer to look over the work and price the portrait according to how much work will go into it, as described above, but you can either set a budget or get started by purchasing a certificate for yourself or as a gift.
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Great Rescues Day Book:
Portraits, Rescue Stories, Holidays and Events, Essential Feline Information, All in One Book
Each month features one of my commissioned portraits of a feline or felines and their rescue story along with a kitty quote on the left page, and on the right page the month name with enough lines for all possible dates, with standard holidays and animal-themed observances and events. Great Rescues also includes a mini cat-care book illustrated with my drawings including information on finding strays or orphaned kittens, adopting for the first time or caring for a geriatric cat, a list of household toxins and toxic plants, or helping stray and feral cats and beginning with TNR.
Each book includes also 10 sheets of my “22 Cats” decorative notepaper with a collage of all the portraits in black and white so you can make your own notes or write special notes to friends.
The portraits in this book, collected as a series, won both a Certificate of Excellence and a Muse Medallion in the 2011 Cat Writers’ Association Annual Communication Contest, as well as the 22 Cats Notepaper mentioned below.
Copyright
All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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Weekly schedule of features:
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Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
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Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
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