And the winners are...

Ok we have 7 official winners and 3 pending winners. Part of the goal with this contest was to see if people could actually study their camera long enough to send the proper size file if we give stuff away. Low and behold ... you guys mastered the technology, you sent me 1MB and larger files! Thank you all so much, I know it had to have been difficult!
I know I sound just a wee bit sarcastic, but 65% of our clients send us sweet adorable images that are so low in resolution they hurt my eyeballs when enlarged ... we are talking huge jagged pixelation. You guys all did a great job on the photos!

Now the 2nd goal was to get some of you long time blog lurkers to post a comment to enter ... yep, I wanted you to step out of the shadows and say hi on my blog! Bloggers love comments ... it is what we live for. Three of our 10 winners did not do the commenting part that we stated in the rules. They did send us their photos at the right size, and their address. If Artie, Murphy and Sunny will post a comment or ask their humans to post a comment and say hi then they will be official winners too. I am eager to work on Artie ...check out those goggles! Please leave me a comment Artie!

Now ... Ruby where is your photo? You were an early commenter, but no photo made it through to us ...send us one to today and we will add you to the list.



Thanks to everyone that commented! If you missed this contest do not feel bad. I will be giving stuff away all month. You have to read the blog to win though. You never know what day of the week I will be posting a comment-contest. It will not always be breed specific either.

Pet Portrait Contest Winners

We had a terrific response to yesterday's contest and we have 10 winners. It will take me an hour or two to match up names with photos, and as soon as I can do that I will post the winners here on the blog .... so stay tuned.

Top 10 Most Popular Dog Breeds At Art Paw

Over the years I have seen some trends on popular dog breeds and we often will go in cycles around here doing 6 or 7 of one breed in a single month. Today I am going to post what I think are our most popular breeds. You can click any thumbnail to see more of that breed. You can also get an overview of many of the dog breeds we have worked on by clicking here.
Be sure and scroll down to see our free portrait offer at the end of this post.

#1 The Pug

#2 Labrador Retrievers

#3 Boston Terriers

#4 Chihuahuas

#5 Golden Retrievers

#6 Bulldogs

#7 Dachshunds

#8 Boxers

#9 American Bulldogs

#10 Frenchies

Free Portrait Offer on Specific Dogs:

Two of my favorite types of dogs are missing from this list ... The Scottish Terrier and The good ol' American Mutt. If you have either of these types of dogs leave a comment and then upload a 1 mb photo ( or larger) and I will create a free 8 x 10 pet portrait for you.
Offer TERMS:
#1 This offer is good only until midnight tonight (7/2/08) for the 1st 10 people to leave a comment on this blog. In your comment tell me if you have a Scott or an adorable mixed breed pup.

#2 YOU MUST BE ABLE TO UPLOAD A 1 MB file or larger. No you can not send photos by mail, and NO a 10k image from your cell phone will not work. Images that are too small will be rejected.

#3 You must have either a Scottie or a Mutt to qualify for this offer.

#4 Free portraits will take between 6 to 8 weeks to deliver.

#5 No custom proofing included on this offer, we just create the artwork and ship it to you.

#6 You must leave a comment so we know when we reach our limit! The comment text link is at the bottom of this post on the hand right side. It has the current number of comments and you just click on that, a window opens up, you type a few words to tell us about your dog. Even if it shows 10 comments go ahead and leave a comment as some folks will not be able to send an actual high resolution 1 MB image, trust me on that one.

Don't have a Scottie or a Mutt? Don't feel bad, we will have more free offers later this month.

Decoration Tutorial

If you feel frustrated or uninspired, get yourself confortable and take look at this tutorial. Topics covered: typography fundamentals and pathfinders and shape modes in Adobe Illustrator. ComputerArts.co.uk

"Recent Computer Arts cover illustrator Tom Lane reveals how he uses Illustrator and Fontographer to create impressive decorative typefaces that can be used to inject something special into your work.
Decorative illustrations, paintings and typefaces have inspired artists for centuries, and re-working historical design elements or even bringing life to your own sketches and doodles is a great way to create exciting illustrative elements with a contemporary edge." Full tutorial and files

Vector Mix

A free vector stock from uvsoaked. The pack contains random black and white shapes and few silhouette figures (the phoenix and the polo player are favourites). I guess sooner or later someone will find use of them. DownloadThe file formant is in Encapsulated PostScript (eps), so it can be edited with most vector editors.

Cockapoo and Malteepoo

"Smoochee and Chloe's Blue Heart"

I just finished "most" of the work on this new doggy pet portrait. The title comes from the funky blue heart that is formed in the negative space between the two pups. I first noticed this shape on my friend Melissa's Puggie artwork a few weeks ago. Of course her ground was red so the heart shape really jumped out at me. For those of you not seeing it .... look at the light blue color in between their ears and the heart's point is where their bodies meet.

About The Artwork: This painterly style portrait of Smoochie & Chloe has bold colors highlighting their coat. I also have a full body sample or two that I will be proofing the client with later today. The original low resolution photo pixelated like crazy upon enlargement ( see below). On this piece I went pretty heavy on the dry brush filter and added tons of painted lines and brush strokes to smooth out the original texture.
Click image below to see pixelation that occurs with low resolution images.

Original Photo / File size 140K

Bliss at Home and New Portraits

"Bliss The Italian Greyhound"

Zero in A Bliss T-shirt! IG's look so cool in doggy duds.

Bliss the Greyhound was shipped last Friday and her humans have already sent us a shot of her hanging. I love the red wall. Last night I set up a Gift Shop Page of goodies featuring her artwork. Gift shop pages can be sent up on request once a pet portrait project has been finalized.

Yesterday I worked on Hyper the flying Dingo ( below) and Petunia the Pug ( last image). I will be trying to get a few more people proofed today and will be printing all approved portraits.