Your Toy Portrait - Custom Toy Portraits by Jennifer Maher » hamster

Hamtaro and Totoro, take 4

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:15:03 +0000

8×10 acrylic on cardboard, 2012. These two are long-time V.I.P. toys in our house, and this is my fourth portait of them! The first two versions were puchased off the walls of exhibits, and the third was commissioned by someone who had seen the second but didn’t get to it before it sold. My husband and I originally bought the foot-tall Hamtaro in 2004 as a sort of mascot for his Toyota Matrix, which we called “The Hamster.” We bought the little Totoro for Sonja, hoping she would love the movie as much as we do (and she does!) I got myToulouse Lautrec on with this portrait, which is painted on a piece of cardboard that has been calling to me from the back of one of Sonja’s activity books for weeks!

Watercolor Trio

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:35:27 +0000

8″x10″ watercolor on paper, 2007. Here’s a watercolor sketch from a few years ago of three objects that may be found in my living room. The giraffe is a tea-light holder from Pier One, the chick is a bubble container/wand thing, and the ceramic hamster actually represented my husband atop our wedding cake. As you can (barely) see in this photo of a photo at left, our cake’s “bride” was a ceramic duck with a silver star on her head. Of course!

Knuffles

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:45:12 +0000

8″x10″ oil, 2004. Here is a “early” toy portrait that I painted several years ago of my sister’s childhood favorite, Knuffles. He was about 6″ high, I believe made by Gund, and pretty ambiguous about his species. There were many heated family discussions regarding what sort of animal he was… a cow? Hamster? Guinea pig? A nutria, even? His amorphous, squishy body made him a go-to living room battle projectile whenever the need for one arose.

Totoro and Hamtaro, Take 3

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:33:25 +0000

8″x10″ acrylic, 2009. These two seem to have that certain something — those great big, round, maniacal eyes seem to say, “take us home so we can stare at you from that presently blank spot on your wall!” I have sold two variations on this theme this year already, so I thought I would make another one for an upcoming show. I’m not sure if their paths would actually cross in their bizarro Japanese pop culture worlds, but I’d like to think so,

Totoro/Hamtaro

Jennifer At Your 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.