I love the original “Girl in a Blue Dress”. I created a sketch to prepare for a painting using a  Guinea Pig as the subject. But did she need a hat, I wondered. Here were my ideas. In the end, I decided to send her out into the world hat-less. I do think she wears hats well, though. Not all of us can.

When I create these portraits, I imagine a long hallway with walls covered of historical (human ) portraits. In my mind, this hallway is in a castle. Or maybe it’s in a “cottage”, which is what wealthy people used to call their huge estates in the 19th century here in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts. I imagine someone strolling along, viewing each of the portraits one by one. One of my Old World Pet Portraits is randomly placed on this wall. The viewer looks, and keeps going, ready to view the next portrait. But then they stop and walk back…. something is not quite right….. “why, that’s a Guinea pig!”, they might exclaim upon the second examination.

My goal when creating my portraits is to make it look so completely natural for them to be the subject of that historical portraiture that you don’t notice the oddity right away. When I  do that, I feel I have been successful.