Holiday Portraits 2024

John Sico’s Wife, their daughter, and their Cargo bike

John Sico, an old buddy of mine from the days I actually did CrossFit, reached out with this last minute portrait request in the beginning of December. “Guffaw” I said “this is PLENTY of time, are you kidding? People are still going to be asking me for stuff for weeks!”

Given the complexity however, he was right in being trepidatious that I might not have the time to finish it. (Spoiler alert I finished it with time to spare).

This is John’s wife and their kid from just outside of Philadelphia on their yuba kombi e-cargo bike. It’s a well known fact that I love bike stuff so I was more than happy to take on this detailed challenge. My favorite part is probably the bike inside the cargo basket of the other bike. There’s something meta about this.

Sico’s Aunt and her horse

“Possibly insane 2nd request” is how John Sico titled this follow up email from his bike portrait request above. He was much more right about this one. A) It was a bit more last minute. B) Again it’s kinda complex (especially because the source photo was cropped in much more tightly than this, and I had to create most of the horse’s head without it actually being in the photo.

Fortunately, I had the assistance of Amber Heintzberger, who has been taking my classes for months and also happens to be a huge horse person. Amber was very generous in her anatomical advice to me while working on this project. Some of it I had to shoehorn in because I had already started painting - but her guidance gave me a LOT of direction I wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere else. It made this a wonderful portrait.

Cathy Albericio

True story - Cathy Albericio (@metsfan28) tried to run me over in the stop & shop parking lot to demand I make this Christmas portrait for her. Also true - she & Melanie Curtis (melaniecurtis.com) have been friends since middle (?) school up in way upstate New York. It’s a coincidence that we all live in the same town now, and we get to run into each other pretty frequently.

Cathy likes to joke that this dog is her parent’s favorite child. I’ve met the dog. And the parents. And they do love the dog very much. They seem to love Cathy very much too - which is fortunate since she’s their human child. But I’ve never seen Cathy jump up and down and slobber all over them when they come back home. I HAVE seen Cathy squeal her car’s tires around the parking lot to try to run me down however. They’re a very enthusiastic family.

Franco for Ro Brann from Regina Eckert

Regina Eckert (local school board member & fellow Tuscan school parent) got this portrait of Franco for Ro & Robb Brann. Their beloved dog of 15+ years passed away not too long ago. He was part of their family before their daughters were even born!

The Brann's are pretty good friends of mine too - their older daughter is one of my kid's BFFs for sure. Ro and I were co-directors of a Tuscan Show skit last year. And Rob took 15 minutes of his audio expertise to edit our audio track. It was an honor to work on something for *all* of you. Merry Christmas!

Dogs for Susan Ramos

There’s two dogs were quickies for my former coworker Susan Ramos as a gift for her neighbor.

Some of my portraits were quickly done versions of the much more detailed work I usually do. With these, I set myself a relatively short time limit and do the best I can within that time. It’s quick, it’s more gestural, sometimes they’re really wonderful. After the time is up (let’s say it’s an hour) it’s brushes down! Then straight to the post office (Except for this one. This one Susan picked up from me because she lives around the corner.)

Otis for Roz Metzger

One of two portraits I did for Rosalyn Metzger this year. This is Otis, and I lovvvve painting smush faced wrinkly dogs with overbites in snuggly blankets. Literally one of my favorite things. 🥰😍😊🐶

Rosalyn’s daughter lives in SOMA, and one of her friends sent my info to her mom. Thanks, mysterious friend! Rosalyn first reached out on the night of my Book Launch Party, and it turns out she lives in the town next to my parents - Bethlehem, PA. I tried to get her to hitch a ride with my folks up to the party, but that didn’t work. It was a long shot anyway! We ended up meeting for handoff in Livingston right before a scheduled dental surgery. It was a delightful conversation to catch up on some hometown gossip.

Otto for Roz Metzger

Otto! Dog 2/2 for Roz Metzger & her daughter Michelle. I’d write a whole long post about it, but you’re just going to have to scroll back to the previous post about Otis for all the storytime. 😗🥰💫

Dan Macri & Rachel Huelbig in the Hall of Mirrors

A year ago, Rachel had me do a portrait of Dan & three of his buddies at one of their kids’ weddings. At the time it was one of the more complicated portraits I’ve done - in part because I had to montage so much of it together from separate photos and add easter egg details in the background. Rachel keeps me on my toes with her commissions, because this one was pretty complicated too. Mostly because of the setting!

The hall of mirrors in Versaille is an opulent, Baroque-style gallery with ornate and complex details. If I were an oil painter, maybe this would’ve been easier. (Becuase I could’ve added highlights later). I’m just making excuses though. It was a challenge regardless of the medium! My favorite part was Rachel’s dress - but she also wanted me to capture the setting too. Those chandeliers! Agh! Chandeliers are hard. Fortunately for me I like challenges.

Mason Hedgecoth’s Land Cruiser

I’m not at the level of Paul Heaston’s (@paulheaston) amazing work, but it’s a goal! For this portrait of Mason Hedgecoth’s Landcruiser which Alicia Hedgecothe commissioned from me, I immediately thought of Paul’s style. He does lots of vehicles. And he uses a lot of detailed, but kinda wild inking first. One of his videos pointed me towards the Sailor Fude De Mannen pen, which is my 2nd favorite pen. (The muji/chinco ones are my #1s.)

In a different stage of my artists journey, I would do a lotttt of detailed (and haphazard) inking first. It’s something I enjoy doing a lot, so this was a great excuse for me to use that method again. Everyone should go check out Paul’s reels. They’re great examples of not needing to be able to “know” how@to draw. Everything starts out looking kinda lousy, but he sculpts his way into spectacular form and volume.

Nacho for Deanna Taylor Heacock

Deanna Heackock (aka @deannaheacock aka @goodbottlerefillshop) is such a fun person, and I’m grateful she came back for ANOTHER cat portrait this year, this time of NACHO. 🙌💫🥳 This is the 2nd cat she’s commissioned from me.

I should really get some more biographical info on this cat, but for now, let’s just marvel at how cut it is. Awww awwwwwww 😻☺️🥰

Franca for Evan Kilgore’s partner Sam

@ekilgore commissioned this portrait of Franca for his partner Sam this Christmas. “It’s a wacky photo” he said. “I’ll see if I can find a better one.”

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed, “this photo is fantastic! It reminds me a lot of the sources that @doggodrawings_ gets for her work, which are always overemphasized but full of life & character”.

Working from a photo like this makes me want to try to art direct pet portraits in the future. Essentially, take a close close close shot, straight up the nose. It’ll *probably* look awesome. Give it a shot! Tell me how it works out!

Zinnia & Karen Robinson’s Mother In Law

Karen Robinson reached out to ask if I could do a quickie of this photo during a pop-up session at Perch home but I said “ehhhh, those are mostly for in-person portraits. But I’d be happy to work on this from home!”

And that’s pretty much all there is to this story.

Again, this is another quickie. Kinda like the pop-up portraits I do in 10 minutes. But a little bit longer for all of the quickies at home.

Dan Edge with Family & House

Dan wins the award for thinking ahead this holiday season. It was back in the balmy month of October that I worked on this for him & his family. At the same time, I was burning the midnight oil working on my Maplewood Map. Christmas was just a glimmer in our eyes at that point - whispers of Mariah Carey carrying through the gentle fall breeze, leaves falling like the snowflakes that actually brought us a white Christmas this year.

The challenge here was working from multiple photos and references. There was no one “great” photo of the garden in full bloom, so I did my best with that, based on some guidance from Dan. His family was also in a separate photo (taken by Morgan Triska). And THAT photo ended above the knees. Fortunately, I know enough about human anatomy to fill in those blanks pretty convincingly.

The Bardey Family and their cats

Eric & Michelle Bardey are neighbors & close friends. They had me set up my pop up portraits for their Rutgers Street block party and it was a huge success! Michelle has taken some of my art classes at Oh Canary, and Eric is a great friend. Their kids are pretty chill too. Their cats I haven’t actually met, but i’m assuming they’re awesome.

Michelle asked me if I could do this entire portrait during their block party at my pop up. I WOULD’VE, but it would have taken me most of the day! Six subjects is a LOT to cram into one painting. I mean, it’s easily doable (obviously) but in 10 minutes? There’s no way I would’ve been able to do it as good as I should’ve. So I took the reference photos home (those cats were NOT sitting in their laps for this) and worked on it over a couple weeks.

Hope you guys love it as much as I loved working on it.

Quickie dog for Danielle Tropea

Danielle is a friend and neighbor of mine, and she asked for a quick portrait of this dog for a friend’s 50th birthday. This was one of those “ask for a portrait on Thursday for a party on Sunday things” so naturally i couldn’t promise anything way too complex. Fortunately that’s exactly what Danielle had in mind, so here’s another one where i set myself a short time limit & cranked it out.

Maggie, Mozart, and Sam for Lee - Kevin Reynold’s partner

Maybe Kevin wins the most-ahead-of-time commission request. He commissioned these three dogs for his partner Lee, but I don’t really remember when. Yes, I could just check my messages but I don’t want to.

Yellow Lab is Sam, Chocolate Lab is Maggie, Black dog is Mozart. All three of these good dogs passed away within the past four years 😢. I hope this portrait brings you both happiness and fond memories!

Kevin is not only a skydiver, but a pro wrestling fan. This is the 5th piece of art I’ve made for him. He also is prone to sending me screenshots of spotify whenever The Beastie Boys “Sabotage” comes up, because they mention me by my full name in the song.

Li’l Lord Fontleroy Cat & Space Cat

Pets in costumes might be my new favorite thing. This commission for Pete White & Sara Rothwell was awesome. They’re another couple that lives right around the corner from me, and this was the last thing I finished for the holidays. Being able to walk over to my clients homes really saves a lot on shipping.

This here is Yeats & Heaney. Yeats is the flouncy Li’l Lord Fontleroy on the left, and Heaney is the astronaut on the right. I’m assuming these outfits were chosen based on their cat personalities. All I know is that Yeats can be kind of a thug. I’m not even sure how I found this out. Oh right actually it was just a typo. Meant to write “thing”. But Pete clarified that yeah, he can be a bit of a thug.