8×10 acrylic, 2013. Tara is expecting her first baby this May, and she’s fully immersed in setting up and decorating the little girl’s nursery. To complete the décor, Tara commissioned portraits of her own favorite childhood toy, a lamb, and her husband’s, this adorable brown rabbit. Because she had already chosen frames for the paintings, Tara requested that I forgo my usual stretched canvas format in favor of a sturdy, archival paper. I’ll be posting my portrait of Tara’s charmingly grumpy-looking lamb tomorrow, and I hope Tara will send me a photo of the finished nursery!
Author: Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait
Beans
8″x10″ acrylic, 2012. Thirty-six years ago, Sami’s mother’s company had a Christmas party which featured a visit from “Santa.” On that occasion, this doll was Santa’s gift to Sami’s then-two-year-old sister. With her soft, bean-bag body, a sweet-faced, plastic head, and a fabulous floppy hat, “Beans” was a cherished toy throughout childhood. Eventually the doll went into safe-keeping in their mother’s cabinet — until it was spotted by Sami’s neice, Ramsie! Beans now enjoys the adoration of three-year-old Ramsie and sleeps with her every night. I love to hear about toys that are beloved by multiple generations of a family!
Peter Rabbit
6″x8″ acrylic on cardboard, 2013. This little Peter Rabbit from Eden Toys belonged to my husband when he was a child, and I have always considered it to be an absolutely perfect example of proportion and design in the realm of stuffed toys. Even though I’m somewhat desensitized to the charms of most stuffed animals these days, I still find this bunny to be completely adorable from every angle! I’ve even painted him twice… the first time was in 2009, when I was cobbling together my toy portrait business. Looking at the two portraits together, I’m struck by how my style has evolved over the course of nearly 400 paintings! 
Pet Portrait: Olive Grown Up
5″x7″ acrylic, 2013. As an incredibly thoughtful and clever Valentine’s Day gift for his wife, Tim commissioned a pair of portraits of the couple’s beloved boxer Olive. The first painting depicts Olive as a puppy, and this one shows her as she is today, a loveable “smush” usually found sprawled upon the couch.
Pet Portrait: Olive as a Puppy
5″x7″ acrylic, 2013. Tim racked up a gazillion husband points this past Valentine’s Day with this amazing two-part gift to his wife! Their beloved boxer Olive is like a member of their family, and Tim commissioned two little portraits of her: One as a a puppy, and the other as the couch-loving cuddler she is today. Tim describes her (Olive, not his wife!) as “a big smush.” Here she is as a baby… watch for my next post to see her all grown up!
Kaci’s Bunny
8″x10″ acrylic, 2013. It’s a beautiful and rare thing when a child appreciates a gift in equal proportion to its significance! In this case, “appreciates” would be an understatement. Kaci’s mother Karen received this bunny blanket at her baby shower in 2003 from a dear, lifelong family friend. The bunny was placed in the crib and baby Kaci immediately became attached to it. Karen tells me that bunny is present in nearly every photograph of Kaci ever taken! The bunny is now so worn that any snuggling at all would cause it’s head to detach, so a backup “Bunny 2” was purchased to sleep with Kaci while Bunny sits close by on the nightstand. This portrait will be given to Kaci on her upcoming 10th birthday.
Koala, Snoopy, Woodstock
6″x8″ acrylic on cardboard, 2013. According to my very small sampling, if you’re a clever, funny personality on Twitter, you are highly likely to be attached to a stuffed Snoopy. This Snoopy and Woodstock are the childhood toys of clever, funny Twitterer and blogger Jett, and the koala belongs to her husband Maxim. Jett and Maxim’s children are also represented here by the absence of the koala’s nose and one of Snoopy’s eyes, which were worn off by their son. I love to make family or marriage portraits in which each spouse or family member is represented by his or her favorite toy. When Jett posted photos of these well-worn and highly significant specimens, I could not resist cobbling this portrait together as a thank you for her considerable kindness and support of my work!
Pet Portrait: Jake and Ben
9″x12″ acrylic, 2013. These two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels share the same father, an evident bounty of affection for each other, and some self-imposed responsibilities around the house! Ben, the brown pup, is four years old and is known to Heather and her family as the “fireman.” If any sort of smoke is in the air, Ben begins to tremble and act peculiar… in fact, he usually needs to be held and comforted for about a half an hour in order to calm down. Six-year-old Jake is the family’s “policeman” who barks mightily at any outside noise or visitor. This amazing “spooning” pose isn’t a common occurence, according to Heather, but speaks volumes about the relationship between the two brothers.
Boop
8″x10″ acrylic, 2013.
Believe it or not, the nose on this classic stuffed Snoopy was intact when he was discovered in a collection of donated toys at a public library ONE YEAR AGO. It was loved off by Isaiah, three-year-old son of the formidable and hilarious Twitter and Instagram presence Michael, aka @DadBeard. The Snoopy, known as “Boop,” was in fact a replacement for the one Michael was given as a baby. Michael has four children, and he had passed down the original Boop to Isaiah, the elder of his two boys. Isaiah adored it and would tweak its nose to relax. When Boop was lost at a park, the family somehow stumbled upon an exact replacement at their library in Houston. When the new, equally beloved Boop’s nose was ultimately tweaked off, Isaiah moved on to scratching at the fur, resulting in the threadbare patch you see here. I hope this particular Snoopy will hold together for the next generation! If you participate in Twitter or Instagram, I highly recommend following @dadbeard and his family’s funny, quirky, and touching journey. Here’s Michael’s photo of Isaiah, Boop, and the portrait…
Vivi’s Bunny
8″x10″ acrylic on canvas, 2013. The devotion inspired by Jellycat bunnies is quite something! Children absolutely adore them. I’ve painted many a beloved Jellycat, and where there is one, there are often several. Kids wear them right out, so extras for rotation and replacement are essential! This particular bunny (and it’s three back-ups) is a special edition released by Anthropologie, with incredibly soft, heathery fur. Vivi’s mom, Casey, happened upon a pile of them while wandering around an Anthropologie while eleven months pregnant. She figured that since it was the year of the rabbit, a stuffed bunny would be a perfect gift for the new baby. Sure enough, Vivi takes Bunny everywhere and sleeps with him in a choke hold every single night. The four doppelgangers are rotated for even wear and to keep them “equally stinky and crusty,” as Casey wrote in her Babble blog. A few years ago I painted Casey’s own childhood favorite stuffed bear. If you’re not already familiar with Casey’s Moosh in Indy blog, check it out for extraordinary photographs and wonderful stories of her parenting journey.