Hand-painted portraits · close to thirty years
Hand-painted portraits from your photos — pets, people and places
Dogs, cats, horses, people, families and the houses they grew up in — painted by hand, in our own studio, from the photograph you already have. Even a bad one. One painter takes it from drawing to varnish, you see a photo of the finished canvas before it ships, and trade pricing starts at a single piece.
Who are you buying for?
For the trade
I'm buying for a client
Etsy and online sellers · interior designers · frame shops · wedding photographers · pet memorial services · gift shops and galleries.
- Trade pricing from one piece — no minimum order
- 50+ painters — series and volume orders, up to 5 m a side
- Discounted first sample, price list on request
For yourself
I'm buying for myself
A portrait of your dog, cat or horse. A memorial for a pet or a person who has passed. A gift that will still be on the wall in fifty years.
What people bring us
What can we paint? The ones you did not want to lose
A dog, a cat, a horse, a person, a whole family, a house. Almost nobody commissions a portrait of a stranger — what arrives in our inbox is the thing somebody did not want to lose, and it is nearly always ordinary: badly lit, taken on a phone, in a kitchen. The moment mattered. The photograph does not have to be good.
About the studio →- The dog asleep in the same patch of sun she always chose.
- A grandmother who died before the grandchildren were born.
- Two people in one photograph each, who were never photographed together.
- A horse photographed over a stable door, on a phone, in bad light.
- The house everyone grew up in, the week before it was sold.
- A wedding where someone was missing from the group.
Proof of skill
How good are the painters?
A commissioned pet portrait can't show a painter's range — nobody has seen the dog. A master copy can: anyone can put it next to the original and judge. These are the studio's own pieces, painted to build and prove technique. They are not commissions and we do not sell copies of them.
Holbein Master Copy
Acrylic/oil, hand-painted on canvas
Vigée Le Brun Master Copy
Acrylic/oil, hand-painted on canvas
David Cast Drawing
Graphite on paper
Close up
And this is the surface
A master copy shows whether a painter can draw. It does not show whether what arrives at your door is paint. These are photographed close enough to see the brush: the thickness where the light catches, the direction the bristles went, the weave of the canvas underneath. A print has none of it, and an AI image has a smooth nothing where this texture should be.
Crops from finished commissions, at roughly four times life size. Tap any one to enlarge.
What distinguishes us
Why choose this studio for a hand-painted portrait?
Close to thirty years on one subject leaves a studio with a wide tolerance for odd requests and a short list of things it will not promise. Most of what people assume is impossible, we have already painted.
Portraits, and almost nothing else, for close to thirty years
One subject, done for decades. Not a print shop that added portraits, and not a marketplace routing your photo to whoever is free — the same studio, the same painters, long enough to have painted most of what a photograph can throw at us.
Any style you can describe
Realistic, classical, impressionist, decorative; smooth or heavily textured; oil, acrylic, charcoal, watercolour, pencil. We paint to what you want rather than to a house style — send an example of the look you have in mind and we will tell you honestly how close we can get.
Oil vs acrylic →Photographs while it is being painted
Not only a proof at the end. You see the drawing, then the painting as it comes up, so nothing is a surprise at the finish and a change costs an hour instead of a repaint.
Unusual requests are normal here
Three photographs combined into one group. A person who was never in the room. A pet that has gone, beside a child who never met it. A mock-up you made yourself with an AI tool, painted properly in paint. Ask before you assume it cannot be done — the answer is usually yes.
Hand-painted vs AI art →Several hundred frames
Decades of ordering means long-standing moulding suppliers and a very wide selection — gilt, black wood, float, linen liner, carved and plain. We send the selection that suits your piece rather than asking you to browse a catalogue.
Shipped worldwide, cheapest route found per order
Rolled in a tube or crated if framed, to you or straight to your customer. Freight is compared across carriers on every single shipment rather than charged at a flat rate, because a flat rate is always somebody paying too much.
Why the price works
Four reasons, no catch
We price by size, number of subjects and level of detail — not by an artist's name. The rest is structure.
- 01
Our own painters, no marketplace commission
The painters work in our studio. There is no platform between you and them taking a cut of every order.
- 02
Zero paid advertising
You're paying for the painting, not someone's ad budget. We grow through trade partners and word of mouth.
- 03
Studio-direct, no gallery or retail layer
Paintings ship from the studio to you or to your customer. No showroom, no distributor, no retail markup built in.
- 04
200+ shipping channels, compared on every order
Each shipment is quoted across our carrier network so you pay a competitive rate for that size and destination.
Proof of hand
Real paint, real brushstrokes
Every piece is completed by one painter from start to finish — no assembly line. Below: a close-up crop of a finished painting, and a painter at work. Every image on this site is a photograph of real hand-painted work.
Four checks you can run yourself to tell a painting from a print — they work on anyone's work, including ours.
- Raking-light photo sent with every digital proof
- No prints, no print-and-paint-over, no AI-generated images
- Eight-stage process documented on How We Paint
Recent work
From the easel
How an order runs
Five steps, one approval that matters
Nothing ships until you have seen the finished painting and said yes.
- 01
Send photo
Upload or WhatsApp the reference photo. Not sure it will work? Send it anyway and we will tell you.
- 02
We quote
Size, number of subjects and detail level set the price. You get a written quote to confirm.
- 03
Painting starts
One painter takes the piece from first sketch to final varnish. No assembly line.
- 04
Digital proof for your approval
You see the finished painting before it ships and can request adjustments.
- 05
Crated and shipped
Rolled in a tube or crated framed, with tracking, to you or direct to your customer.
For families and pet owners
The same painters, one painting at a time
Most of our work goes to trade partners, which is why a private commission costs what it does: the studio is already running, and you are paying for the painting rather than a showroom. Send a photo of your dog, cat, horse or family — or of someone you have lost — and we will tell you honestly what it will support.
Request the trade price list
Tell us your business type and we send the full price list, sample terms and how project work is quoted, by email.
Thank you — we have your inquiry.
We reply within 24 hours on business days, with the price list attached. Want an answer sooner? Message us on WhatsApp and mention your name.
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