Portrait subjects

Commission a portrait, by subject

Dogs, horses, houses, cars, uniforms: each subject has its own photographic problem. Pick the one you need and read how we solve it.

Every subject has its own photographic problem. A dog's likeness sits in the skull under the fur; a house has no face at all, so the composition has to carry it; a car is mostly reflection, and reflection is where cheap paintings are exposed. Painting them all the same way is why so much commissioned art looks approximate.

Each page below is about that specific difficulty: what to photograph, which canvas actually holds the subject, and what we do when the only photograph you have is not good enough. Prices and delivery times are identical across all of them — only the problem changes.

A dog portrait from your photograph

Hand-painted in oil on canvas, from the photo on your phone — including the one where he is looking slightly away, which is usually the one that looks

A pet portrait from a photograph

Cats, dogs, rabbits, horses, birds — hand-painted in oil from the photographs you already have, at prices published on the page rather than quoted by

A cat portrait from your photograph

Painted in oil from the photo on your phone — including the one where she is half turned and one ear is flattened, which is usually the one that actua

A horse portrait from a photograph

Oil on canvas, painted from the photographs you already have — the one at the show, the one in the field, the one on an old phone from 2014.

A house portrait from a photograph

Your house in oil, from the angle it actually looks best from — and without the wheelie bins, the wires or the neighbour's extension.

A wedding portrait, painted from the photographs

One moment from the day, in oil — usually assembled from two or three frames taken by different people with different cameras in different light.

A baby portrait from the photographs you have

Oil on canvas, painted from the first photographs — including the ones taken badly, at close range, in a dim room at six in the morning.

A family portrait from separate photographs

Four people, four photographs, three decades and two countries — assembled into one painting with the light going the same way for everybody.

A couple portrait, composed rather than copied

Two people on one canvas, which is a composition decision before it is a likeness decision — and usually built from two photographs taken years apart.

A portrait of your grandparents, from the photographs

Painted from the print on the sideboard, the ones in the album, and the phone snap somebody took last Christmas.

A memorial portrait, painted from a photograph

A portrait of somebody who has died, painted slowly, from the photograph you can actually bear to look at.

A pet memorial painting, from the photographs

For the animal that was in the room for fifteen years — painted from the photographs taken when they were still well.

A car portrait, painted from a photograph

Your car in oil, which mostly means painting what the paint is reflecting — because a car is a mirror with wheels attached.

A boat portrait, painted from the photograph

A boat in oil, from the picture taken on the mooring — water, lettering and rigging included, and the name spelled correctly.

Paintings for an office, commissioned properly

Where the wall, the brand guidelines and the purchase-order system all have an opinion before the painting does.

Paintings for a restaurant interior

For a room that will be full of people, steam and low light by eight in the evening, and cleaned by somebody with a cloth at midnight.

A military portrait, painted from the photographs

A uniform portrait, where the ribbons, the rank and the badges will be checked by people who know exactly what they should look like.

Two dogs, one canvas

Including the pair who have never sat still in the same photograph, and the pair whose size difference makes that photograph almost impossible.

A portrait of siblings, from the photographs

Brothers and sisters on one canvas, where the age gap decides almost everything before the composition does.

An anniversary portrait, worked backwards from the date

A painting for a specific day, which means the calendar decides the size, the composition and whether it is possible at all.

A portrait of a horse and rider together

Two subjects on one canvas, where the proportions, the saddle and the horse's ears decide whether it reads as a partnership or as a passenger.

Your pet, painted as a royal portrait

A hand-painted oil portrait of your dog or cat in the costume and setting of a seventeenth-century court painting — velvet, ermine, a dim palace behin

Questions

Before you choose

From $189 for an 8 × 10 in, $389 for the 16 × 20 in most people choose, up to $2,690 for four subjects on the largest canvas. Price depends on canvas size and subject count, never on the subject itself.

Send them anyway and we will tell you before you pay. Often a second photograph solves it; where the face cannot carry the size you want, we will recommend a smaller canvas rather than take the order and hope.

Yes. A sitting catches an animal or a person at their most self-conscious; a photograph catches the moment they looked like themselves, which is what a portrait is for.

Not sure which one you need?

Send the photograph and the wall dimensions — we will tell you the smallest canvas that will work, and the date we can keep.

Ask us Price table