Dogster’s art director Lori fell for the beautiful dog portraits of fine artist Lauren Klose when she saw an article profiling her work. She shared the story with me, and I knew we had to share these amazing pet portraits with Dogster readers.

Lauren’s a busy woman — wife, mother, artist, piano teacher, tennis player and yoga lover. Her company, Artistic Aire, includes both painting and piano, with painting a mix of 40 percent piece work and portraits and 60 percent mural and faux finishing work.

A heartfelt thank you led her way to doing pet portraits. When she and husband Rob Knox married in June of 2013, they wanted to thank their good friend, Caryn Levy, for photographing the wedding, so they snagged a few photos of Caryn’s Wheaten Terrier, Stella.

“We knew that a portrait of Stella would be a bigger ‘thank you’ and mean more to her than anything else we could give her,” Lauren explains. “Rob, being a graphic design master, took Stella’s photo and made a graphic rendering of it in Photoshop and Illustrator. After the rendering was complete, I then painted the portrait onto canvas, and we presented it to Caryn as a collaborative piece. Seeing the look on her face was priceless and after her reaction to it, we knew we had created something special together. Each one of my pet portraits is a true collaboration of his graphic design expertise matched with my fine art talent.”

The magic starts with Lauren asking clients to choose four or five photos that best represent their pets’ personality. “Depending on our client’s style, we choose the photograph that will make for the best portrait,” she says.

“I use color and texture to add interest and definition in the portraits and typically focus on a close-up of the pet’s face. A signature of mine is also adding an element of metallic paint in most of my portraits and mural work. I think the metallic paint adds interest and dimension, and I like to use it for my backgrounds and highlights.”

Lauren also offers smaller, less expensive graphic renderings printed to canvas. “I then add hand-painted backgrounds and high/lowlights to the portraits to make them one-of-a-kind.”

Want to see more of Artistic Aire? Go to artisticaireinc.com or look on Facebook.

Thumbnail: Photography Courtesy Artistic Aire. 

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Dogster magazine. Have you seen the new Dogster print magazine in stores? Or in the waiting room of your vet’s office? Subscribe now to get Dogster magazine delivered straight to you!

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