Tag Archives: pet portrait

Commissioned Portrait Specials for Mothers, Fathers and More

"The Washburn Trio", pastel, a Mothers' Day gift, 1998.

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. Mother’s Day is in May and Father’s […]

Commissioned Portrait: Rocky and Bullwinkle

Rocky and Bullwinkle, 12 x 18, pastel © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I’ve had just a few portraits of cats and dogs together and Rocky and Bullwinkle is just about my favorite mostly because of the play of light that we decided to use. The light and shadow and the colors from the brilliant sunlight turned a kind of a typical portrait into one that is really […]

A Small and Simple Portrait, “Chloe”

"Chloe", charcoal and pastel, 5 x 7 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

This portrait is a break from the usual larger, full-color and highly detailed portraits, just to share a little moment and focus on the expression, the face, the most-remembered part of just about any creature we love, human or animal. I had a number of photos, but none were close-up enough but this pose, though […]

Commissioned Portrait: Tommy

This was originally published on The Creative Cat and refers to several articles published there, which are linked. Tommy was another portrait from 2016, and he and his family were very special customers. I’ve known his person, Melanie for several years as a rescuer, corresponded with her and assisted her efforts as much as I […]

Sadie, Marley, Cici and Ashes, Settling Into Their Portrait

Sadie, Marley, Cici and Ashes, 2016 family portrait

I’ve been working on this “family portrait” for a while, moving the cats around and resizing it and I think this is finally the best composition to fit these four very different postures. This is the second group portrait I’ve done for this family including all the current cats in the house in one portrait, […]

A Great Rescue and Commissioned Portrait: I’ll Be Seeing You

"Cooper", 1996, pastel, 22” x 17” © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

CAN THE SUBJECT of a painting communicate through his image? One of the dearest stories from any of my portraits is the one of Cooper, a “first cat” who turned his people into rescuers but who left far too young though he was never far from the memories of his people and the other rescued […]