Animal and Pet Oil Paintings

An animal painting works when the animal is doing something. A kingfisher at the moment it drops toward the water. A border collie moving sheep in the half light before the day starts. A snow leopard holding still on a ledge, which is also doing something. Stillness and motion, painted by hand in oils.

What is in this collection

Four kinds of subject. Wildlife covers the snow leopard on its rocky ledge, an eagle in a stoop, a puffin on a coastal cliff and the smaller creatures that rarely get painted at all. Birds is a group of its own, built around the moment of flight or the dive. Horses and working animals holds a stallion and mare in a spring meadow and dogs at work rather than posed. And a small mythical group takes in creatures such as a pegasus rearing against a storm sky.

Fur, feather and weather are the whole job here. These are painted close enough that the texture is the point.

How each painting is made

Nothing here is printed. Each canvas is painted in oils after you order it, by an artist working from the reference on the page, which is why the lead time runs in weeks and no two are identical.

You set the dimensions rather than choosing from a fixed list. Three finishes are available: Simple for a clean, even surface, Texture for visible brushwork, and Museum for the heaviest impasto, which suits fur and feather particularly well.

Choosing one for a room

A single animal, close in, holds an upright canvas and works at close range: a hallway, a study, beside a reading chair. Meadow and coastal scenes want width instead, hung low above a sofa or a sideboard.

Animal subjects are among the few that sit well in a child's room and in a formal one. Tell us the wall and we will suggest a proportion.

Your own animal

A pet portrait is painted the same way as anything else here: send photographs, in daylight if you can, and an artist will look at them before anything is agreed. Memorial portraits are among the most frequent requests, and old or imperfect photographs are welcome. Shipping is free worldwide.