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.
Tag: custom portrait
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.
Mike the Bear
8″x10″ acrylic on canvas, 2013. Having painted a couple of hundred stuffed bears over the past few years, I’m somewhat immune to their charms. However, as soon as I laid eyes on Mike, the whole raison d’etre for Your Toy Portrait came rushing back to me! Mike’s owner, Michael, a blogger and amusing Twitter presence known as “The Muskrat,” was given this Gund bear about 30 years ago. His father, an Air Force pilot who travelled a lot, brought home a bear for each of his sons on his return from a trip. Michael and his brother Kevin named the bears Mike and Bobby, respectively. In order to tell them apart, both bears were dressed in Underoos — Mike’s are Superman, and Bobby wears Batman. I can’t get over the way thirty years of wear and tear and love molded this bear of once-average cuteness into this freakishly adorable thing!
Pet Portrait: Sadie
8″x10″ acrylic, 2013. This beautiful yellow lab is named Sadie, but children in the classrooms Sadie has visited want to know why she is not called “Salt!” Just like her companion Pepper, Sadie earned an American Kennel Club Canine Citizenship award working as a therapy dog. Sadie joined Sami’s family when she was eight months old. Now eight years old, Sadie is described by Sami as being a very “Marley and Me” kind of dog… They have chased her down highways and she’s eaten many a loaf of bread off the kitchen counter. Over time “Sadie-Bug” has proven to have some endearing quirks: She is afraid of stairs and is especially fearful of feet moving under bed-covers! She is a great traveller and enjoys cruising around in the family’s VW Beetle. Sadie is now the favorite friend of Sami’s little boy Samuel, who learned to say “‘Adie” just after “Momma” and “Daddy!”
Pet Portrait: Pepper
8″x10″ acrylic, 2013. Pepper had countless charms and accomplishments, including an American Kennel Club canine good-citizenship award for her work as a therapy dog. Eleven years ago this weekend, Pepper was found as a six-month-old stray, scavenging and tormented by local kids. Once rescued, she was only apart from Sami for about 12 days over her lifetime, and traveled everywhere with her. When Pepper was four, the family got a lab named Sadie. The two dogs attended obedience school together, where Pepper flourished, amazing everyone with such tricks as covering her face demurely with her paws when Samie would ask, “are you shy?” Pepper loved obstacle courses and could jump through hula hoops. She could escape from almost any cage, fence, or room, and nimbly climb almost anything to reach food. Pepper became a therapy dog at age five, visiting hospitals and nursing homes, school reading programs, and a library program for autistic children. The tags hanging from Pepper’s collar were well-earned, and I’m honored to have painted this extraordinary dog!
Adam’s Family
8″x10″ acrylic, 2012. For this custom family portrait, Adam had to decide which vintage Fisher-Price Little People best represent his family. So that’s Adam’s oldest son, Dean, in the front with the baseball cap, and his strawberry-blonde son, Jon, on the right. But Adam figured that his wife, Jen, most resembled a little freckle-faced girl Little Person he’d seen in a photo I’d sent him. “I’m informed that’s a kid,” he wrote me, “so perhaps you could put freckles on a brown-haired woman?” I love a modification challenge! The classic “mom” features and the cheery freckles combined nicely. And for Adam himself? “Non-descript dude (classic green-bodied ‘dad’) works for me!” The portrait will be a Christmas gift from Adam to Jen.
Woobie
8″x10″ acrylic, 2013. A couple of years ago, I painted a white stuffed tiger for Jen’s then-two-year-old daughter Samantha. Now that Samantha’s baby brother Jack is old enough to have made his allegiance clear to a particular beloved toy, Jen commissioned a portrait of Jack’s monkey blanket-head “Woobie!” Jen asked me to be sure to include the worn white tag attached to the blanket, which, as you might be aware, is the most important part of the toy. When he is falling asleep, Jack rubs the tag against his face (or has one of his parents perform this soothing ritual.) As I’ve mentioned in many other posts, the phenomenon of baby tag obsession is quite familiar to everyone in our household!