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

Emmett’s Hippo

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:26:57 +0000

9″x12″ acrylic, 2011. Simplicity prevails when it comes to this irresistable stuffed hippo. Emmett, now four, was given Hippo as a Christmas gift by his grandmother when he was two. The hippo immediately displaced all the more colorful and seemingly attractive toys in the house in Emmett’s affections. Hippo sleeps with Emmett every night, and has even traveled to Italy with him. Emmett’s mother Andrea tells me that now Emmett’s one-year-old sister adores Hippo too, so toy companies, take note - less is more!

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Sleepy Hippo

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:17:53 +0000

5″x7″ acrylic, 2011. I love the utilitarian names that children sometimes bestow upon their most important posessions! Jennifer’s daughters refer to their favorite stuffed hippo and lamb as their “sleepy” toys, because of course their company is most essential when the girls are tucking in for the night. Jennifer ordered a portrait of each soft, floppy friend, and here is her younger daughter’s Sleepy Hippo.

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Twin Hippos and a Quilt

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 04:38:43 +0000

8″x10″ acrylic, 2010. You might think that these hippos are identical, but four-year-old Charlotte can tell them apart — it’s “something about their smiles,” she says. Charlotte also has twin two-year-old sisters, and so having two alike-but-distinct hippos seemed important to her, Charlotte’s grandmother Pat tells me. The quilt was handmade by Charlotte’s other grandmother. I’ve painted several portraits of late that include multiples (or one representative of multiples) of the same toy which are all in circulation at once — very interesting! Pat will give this portrait to Charlotte for Christmas.

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More info about prints here.

Happy Hippo

Jennifer At Your Toy Portrait — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:23:31 +0000

8″x10″ acrylic, 2009. Hippos hold a significant place in our own family lore, so I was thrilled to be asked to paint this adorable stuffed hippo just before Christmas! His name is Happy, and he’s been the favorite toy of Zoe, 4, since she was one-and-a-half. I love how simple he is — a perfectly abstracted shape, almost minimalist. I was sent some fantastic photos of Zoe together with a very thread-bare Happy and it is clear how loved and important he is! He would fit right in among my younger sister’s collection. She loved hippos as a little girl, and has long been the victim of her family falling back on this fact when buying birthday or Christmas gifts. As Happy demonstrates, sometimes less is more!