Custom Toy Portrait » group portrait

Bunny, Bunny, Quack Quack, and Mr. Elephant

Custom Toy Portrait — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:59:16 +0000

11″x14″ acrylic, 2010. Sharon has 3 children with four favorite toys between them. There are two “Bunnies,” the largest belonging to five-year-old Luke. The second “Bunny” and “Quack Quack” are three-year-old Lilah’s blanket animals. “Mr. Elephant” belongs to 8-month-old Daniel. Sharon commissioned this portrait of the entire group to hang in her own bedroom! I love this idea — it’s like a sort of symbolic, metaphorical portrait of her children.

Twinkles and Dusky

Custom Toy Portrait — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:44:31 +0000

8″x10″ acrylic, 2009. This portrait of Twinkles the cat and Dusky the golden retriever were commissioned by Darby for her sister Annie. Annie was in on the project, and she shared some nice background info about these two. They have both been with her since childhood and through the lifetimes of several beloved pets, including two golden retrievers. She says that Dusky has been wonderful physical stand-in for her dogs whenever she can’t be with them (at college for example,), and is also an eternal reminder of how adorable they were as puppies. I had the pleasure of their company in my studio while I painted them (rather than photos) as Darby and Annie were kind enough to lend them to me.

an early toy portrait

Custom Toy Portrait — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:44:13 +0000

29″x40″, oil on canvas 1996. I did lots of self-portraits in college and grad school because I was always available to model! Here’s one from 1996, and obviously even then I could not resist painting my stuffed animals. This picture features Tigger and a lion called Hubert — he was a give-away at a bank where my mom opened an account when I was a baby. Note the sweet mid-century modern furniture, which unfortunately did not belong to me but was fun to paint.

Crinkle Bee/Peter Rabbit

Custom Toy Portrait — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:48:16 +0000

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8×10″, acrylic on canvas, 2009. Our baby-shower gift registry had one general preference listed: NO PINK! Yeah, that did not last past the first “Oh, he’s adorable!” And besides, no-one listened. One shower gift that we recieved that I almost threw in the trash in horror was this pink bee with crinkley wings. It had hard, lumpy, squeeze-activated, whiney music player that made me want to jump out a window. My mother covertly removed the music tumor, re-sewed its belly, and put in the hands of Sonja who of course LOVED it. Oh, well. In this portrait it is paired with my husband’s adorable childhood Peter Rabbit in order to balance good and evil.

This painting arrives wired for hanging and framed simply in pine.

$140 plus $7 shipping

Totoro/Hamtaro

Custom Toy Portrait — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:46:45 +0000

9×12″, acrylic on canvas, 2009. This dual portrait was so nice I had to make it twice! It was sold during my recent show at Uncommon Grounds, and someone who had seen it and wanted to give it to his girlfriend for her birthday was really disappointed. He called me while I was on vacation in Delaware and explained his situation, and I offered to try my best to reproduce it quickly upon my return… Further complicating the matter, he was not local to our area and the girlfriend’s birthday was only three days after I was to get home. So even before unpacking, I broke out these two stuffed animals, set up my gear, and had the painting complete and Express Mailed within 24 hours!

This picture combines two titans of Japanese pop-culture, Hamtaro the hamster and the Studio Ghibli character Totoro.

Choo Choo Chicken/Ikea Bear

Custom Toy Portrait — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:58:32 +0000

9×12 oil on canvas 2005 — I have to confess — I not-so-accidently misplaced this white bear when we moved into this house. I just always got a bad vibe from it. I bought it at Ikea many years ago, liking it’s bizarre proportions, but it had a weasel-y, unpleasant expression and creepy felt claws. I never wanted it to be in the room with the baby, so now it’s gone. However, the chicken in this picture has become Sonja’s most crucially important toy!

This painting arrives wired for hanging and framed simply in pine.
$100.00 plus $7 shipping

Domo/Penguin/Chicken

Custom Toy Portrait — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:50:15 +0000

10×12″ acrylic on canvas 2009 — Around here we love Japanese design, including pop-culture characters such as Domo-kun. So here is our tiny wind-up Domo along with a penguin bath toy and a fat stuffed chicken. Can’t you just feel the situation comedy chemistry between them? You know that the chicken is the Newman, the penguin is Jerry, and Domo is probobly George.

This painting arrives wired for hanging and framed simply in pine.

$140 plus $7 shipping

Baby Bowling/Elephant

Custom Toy Portrait — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:13:46 +0000

Baby Bowling/Elephant 10×12 acrylic on canvas 2009

My daughter Sonja was given two different sets of “baby bowling,” each of which consist of limbless stuffed animals and a soft ball. One of the sets contains farm animals, and the other, bought by my sister while in Australia, is mostly jungle animals plus some “mystery” creatures, rendered unidentifiable by their creative coloring and their…Australian-ness, I suppose. Purple wombat? Not sure. But it’s fun setting up a virtual army of crazy un-armed (ha ha) animals to be mown down by a merauding toddler. Here are a few of them, clearly coveting the four apendages of a small felt elephant.