Two-dog portraits
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.
Ask people for a photograph of their two dogs together and you get one of three things: the back of one dog leaving the frame, a blur where a tail was, or a picture taken from above in which both animals are looking at whoever is holding the treat and neither looks like itself. The photograph that exists is almost never the photograph the painting needs.
That is not a problem, because two dogs on one canvas is a composite job and always has been. Each dog is painted from its own photograph, at its own angle, and then the two are built into a single composition with one light direction, one ground plane and one background value. What cannot be faked is the relationship between them: whether they touch, who is in front, and how far apart their heads sit. Those are decisions, and they get made in the mock-up.
Two dogs who never sat together
The composition starts with a shared ground. Both dogs have to stand on the same floor or grass, at the same distance from the viewer, or one of them will look pasted on. That usually means choosing photographs taken at similar camera heights — a shot from standing height of a small dog and a shot from floor level of a large one will never agree, however carefully they are cut out.
Light is the second constraint. One key light, from one side, falling the same way on both coats. If one dog was photographed in a window and the other outdoors at noon, the shadow side of one face is rebuilt in the mock-up, and you see that before we paint. Where the mismatch is severe, we will suggest different photographs rather than force the pairing you like best.
Then the relationship. Two heads at the same height, evenly spaced, look like a police line-up. One dog slightly forward and turned a few degrees towards the other reads as a pair. And if they genuinely dislike each other, painting them nose to nose is a lie the family will find funny for about a week.
When one dog is three times the size of the other
A great Dane and a chihuahua on the same canvas is the hardest version of this commission, because true relative scale makes the small dog a detail. At 24 × 36 in, a Dane's head might be nine inches and the chihuahua's three, which is honest and reads badly. The usual fix is to bring the small dog forward and lower, so perspective does some of the work, and to raise the big dog's head so both faces sit near the same horizontal band.
The other approach is a tighter crop: both heads at similar size, with the difference carried by the width of the skull and the length of the muzzle. It works well at 20 × 24 in, and it is the version most owners of mismatched pairs prefer.
What we will not do is equalise them. A chihuahua painted at the size of a labrador stops being a chihuahua, and the joke of the household disappears from the picture. The minimum for two dogs is 20 × 24 in, and mismatched pairs often want 24 × 36 in so the small one keeps its three inches.
Two black dogs, and other colour problems
Two black Labradors are a painting problem before they are a likeness problem: with no edge between them, they merge into one dark shape. The answer is rim light — a lighter edge picked up along one side of each head from a window or a low sun — plus a background value that separates both silhouettes. Black fur is mixed from ultramarine, burnt umber and a little alizarin, never from a tube of black.
One dark dog and one pale dog is easier, and the background does the separating: a mid-tone works for both, where a white wall blows out the pale dog and a dark wall swallows the black one.
Same-breed pairs need a distinguishing feature or the painting becomes a mirror. Usually it is in the ears, the set of the eyes, a grey muzzle, a collar, a scar on the nose. Send a photograph of each dog on its own and tell us which detail identifies which, so we are not relying on our own guess about who is who.
What it costs
Price is set by canvas size and the number of subjects — not by the occasion, the deadline, or how much detail you ask for. The table below is the same one used on every painting page, so there is no quote to wait for.
| Canvas | Metric | 1 subject | 2 subjects | 3 subjects | 4+ subjects |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10 in | 20 × 25 cm | $189 | $259 | — | — |
| 12 × 16 in | 30 × 41 cm | $289 | $379 | $459 | — |
| 16 × 20 in | 41 × 51 cm | $389 | $499 | $619 | $749 |
| 20 × 24 in | 51 × 61 cm | $549 | $699 | $849 | $1,029 |
| 24 × 36 in | 61 × 91 cm | $789 | $1,059 | $1,290 | $1,560 |
| 30 × 40 in | 76 × 102 cm | $1,090 | $1,449 | $1,749 | $2,090 |
| 36 × 48 in | 91 × 122 cm | $1,390 | $1,849 | $2,249 | $2,690 |
Shipping is free worldwide. Framing is optional and quoted separately — most customers have the canvas stretched by a local framer for $60–$120.
How it works
Send the photograph
One sharp phone photo is enough. Tell us the deadline, the wall it is going on, and anything that must or must not be in the picture.
See the mock-up within 24 hours
A digital composite at the exact canvas size and crop, so size and composition are settled before any paint is bought. Nothing is charged until you approve it.
Watch it being painted
Three to five weeks in real oil, with two progress photographs. You can raise a concern at either one — that is what they are for.
Approve, then it ships
You see the finished canvas first, with one free round of adjustments. Then it travels rolled in a rigid tube, tracked and insured, with the numbered certificate inside.
Real oil, not a print
Hand-painted on cotton canvas, varnished, signed. Brushwork you can see in raking light.
You approve before we paint
A digital mock-up at the exact size and crop, within 24 hours, included in the price.
Numbered certificate
Every painting ships with a signed COA stating artist, medium, size and year.
Free worldwide shipping
Rolled in a rigid tube, tracked and insured. No minimum, no distance surcharge.
Questions
Questions we actually get
A second dog is a second subject, so 16 × 20 in of two dogs is $549 and 20 × 24 in is priced from the same table above. Single-dog prices start at $189. Shipping is free worldwide, and combining two separate photographs is $60–$70 if the sources need work.
Yes — that is the normal case rather than the exception. Send one good photograph of each dog, ideally taken at similar camera heights, and we build the composition in the mock-up. You see both dogs in one frame at the exact canvas size before any paint is mixed.
Yes, up to four on one canvas, though the heads shrink as the number rises. Beyond three we usually recommend separate canvases hung as a set: each dog keeps a proper head size, the group still reads as one picture on the wall, and the certificate carries all the names either way.
It is common and it works the same way as any composite. The dog who has died is painted from the best photograph that exists, and if that is an old print it is restored first at $60–$70. We will tell you what the photograph can carry before you commit.
20 × 24 in is the working minimum, 24 × 36 in if one dog is much larger than the other or if you want bodies and paws rather than heads. Below 20 × 24 in each head drops under about three inches, and at that size a likeness stops carrying across a room.
Send one photograph of each dog
They do not need to be in the same picture. Send the best frame of each and we will build the composition, size and price around them.