Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Mother’s and Father’s Day Special, Commissioned Pet Portraits

A Mother's Day gift: Hobbes, pastel, 12" x 15", 2004 © B.E. Kazmarski

Did your parents pass on to you a love of animals? Did they decide one day you needed an animal companion of your own, starting you on a lifelong path of sharing your days with cats and dogs and birds and bunnies and ferrets and any other animal that came along?

watercolor still life of tulips and photo of schnauzer
Veronica's Tulips, watercolor, 16" x 23", 2008 © B.E. Kazmarski

Thank those people who gave you this gift—and I’m loosely defining mother and father because sometimes the person who shared their love of animals with you was an aunt or uncle or grandparent, or even a neighbor who rescued cats or dogs. In everyone’s life is at least one special person who shared a love of animals, and in that person’s life there is often an animal companion who is or was very special to them. Read about Shadow, Casey and Ralph and a special Mother’s Day gift from 2006.

And thinking a little less conventionally, consider a piece of custom art that also includes an animal. For “Veronica’s Tulips”, right, this pet mom got the painting for herself, and wanted both flowers and, after a lifetime of rescued Schnauzers also wanted a Schnauzer in her painting, though not to represent any individual she had lived with. This was the very natural solution.

People and pets together

I’ve done a number of portraits of people with their pets, but many years ago I painted a very special portrait for grandparents who lived in Germany and never had the chance to see their grandchildren and grandcats. A photo was impossible to manage for the parents, so, with photos from the parents I put together a portrait of them all together in a style they requested, more sketchy than finished. I thought I’d taken a better photo of it at the time, but this sample is all I have; it was shipped off to the grandparents that year.

portrait of two children and two cats
The Grandchildren, pastel, 1993 © B.E. Kazmarski

I’m offering 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or a commissioned portrait that is booked between now and Mother’s Day—and Father’s Day as well. Portraits take up to four weeks, especially with framing and then shipping, but we can work things out with certificates and portraits that are done some time in the next two months.

Mother’s Day Discounts in my Etsy Shop

Use MOTHERSPORTRAIT10 to receive 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait (we will discuss the portrait and I will give you an estimate).

Use MOTHERSDAY10 to receive 10% off the purchase of Mother’s Day gifts, which may include a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait.

Read below for a special discount for Father’s Day too!

watercolor portrait of dog and two cats
Shadow, Casey and Ralph, watercolor, 2006 © B.E. Kazmarski

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My favorite Mother’s Day portrait

Several years ago I painted a portrait as a Mother’s Day gift for a couple who had had me paint portraits of two of their cats to give to each other as gifts. The Mother’s Day portrait included a dog and two cats and was a surprise—no less to me when they wanted to present it to her mother here in my studio! You can see the portrait of Shadow, Casey and Ralph at right, and also read the story of the portrait and its presentation to mom here.

pastel portrait of man and cat
Fred and Simba © B.E. Kazmarski

Father’s Day Discounts in my Etsy Shop

Think guys aren’t cat daddies? I’ll be telling more about Fred and Simba, at left, in a few weeks, but trust me they aren’t the only cat and guy combinations around.

Use FATHERSPORTRAIT10 to receive 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait (we will discuss the portrait and I will give you an estimate).

Use FATHERSDAY10 to receive 10% off the purchase of Mother’s Day gifts, which may include a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait.

Sample Commissioned Portrait Certificate

About Commissioned Portrait Gift Certificates

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.

I can also make the package into a PDF and e-mail it to you if you’re in a hurry.

Portrait certificates are a minimum of $125.00 because that is the minimum cost of a portrait.

Certificates are good for up to one year after issue.

How to purchase a gift certificate

You can purchase a $125.00 gift certificate from my Etsy shop if you are also purchasing other animal-inspired merchandise, or you can purchase it right here. For the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day discounts when purchasing from this page the discount isn’t automatically deducted, but use the discount codes MOTHERSPORTRAIT10 and FATHERSPORTRAIT10 in the notes section and I will refund the discounted amount of $12.50 to your credit card. Let me know if you need it in a hurry and I’ll put it together for you as a PDF.

Enter the recipient’s name
Enter shipping address

You only need to enter an address if it is different from the address I’ll receive through PayPal. These are often surprise gifts and need to be shipped away from the home address to make sure they are a surprise.

Take a look at other portraits and read other stories

Read articles here on The Creative Cat featuring current and past commissioned portraits.

Read about how I create commissioned portraits.

Purchase a gift certificate for a commissioned portrait.

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.

Commissioned Cat Portraits Commissioned Dog Portraits

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.

Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

2 thoughts on “Mother’s and Father’s Day Special, Commissioned Pet Portraits

  • I just love Veronica’s Tulips….if I could end up with something like that, instead of my mud puddles, I would be so happy;)…love Hobbes too!

    Reply
    • Robin, one thing I’ll tell you about watercolors like the tulips is that the work is much slower than a looser style and requires a good bit of patience. But the way I finally got my watercolors under control was to drop the idea of loose flowing paintings and paint tight and detailed images until I learned how to handle the amount of water on the brush, the amount of pigment in the water, what brush I used and how to apply it. Only after that could I loosen up a little more amd more until I felt confident. Try it–I started out with a photo of a lighthouse that had really solid shadows so that I didn’t have many soft shadings. Good luck!

      Reply

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