Welcome to JS-Tierportraits!
Schnuffel helps me with drawing
I'm Josefine and I'm happy to welcome you to my website! Since you've found your way here
I'm assuming you're as big an animal enthusiast as I am. For me animals are very special, each individual
has it's very own distinctive characteristics that I'm striving to capture in my portraits.
Because of this, I love learning as much as possible about the animals that I'm asked to portray.
I love to get to know them really well, what they like to do, what they don't like, what their life story is.
What makes your pet (or favourite animal) special for
you?
Feel free to take a look around the website! The
gallery
shows work in all the materials I like to use. Those can be very different from each other: you can find everything
from opaque media like acrylics over much more delicate ones like charcoal and watercolors all the way to digital painting
and making small figurines from clay and paint. As different as all those mediums
can be, they all have in common that they're suitable for making lifelike portraits
that can capture the animal's true spirit!
If you're interested in a portrait of your pet or favourite animal you can find
all necessary info in the
Commissions section.
Of course you're always welcome to send a mail my way, be it to order a portrait or just to ask something.
Like many other animal artists I've always been drawing pets and animals since I
was little (I was born in '84), but I've gotten serious about pet and animal portraits
in 2008. However, for a pretty long time I struggled with a bad, very persistent tendonitis
that I developed in my overeagerness to paint pretty pets. For a time I couldn't
even hold a pencil or a fork, and it took a couple years to recover enough to put
some serious effort into painting and drawing again. That's also the main reason
I had to get a 'normal' job and do the painting in my free time.
In the beginning I wasn't really sure where to go job-wise. I'd been studying Japanese Studies
for 3 years in Leipzig, because the anime/ manga aesthetic has always been fascinating
to me, and I really wanted to learn the language. During this time I also focused
more on that in my art, although I tended to include animal themes wherever I could.
However, I couldn't imagine being a translator or something like that as my main job.
I felt that animals were missing too much, so after my time at uni I did practical training as
an animal caretaker in shelters and pet boarding facilities for a while to get a
feel for that job. This was something I felt I could be happy with, but even here in Germany
you won't get very far in this job without a driving licence, which I started getting asap.
And while I was still doing that everything went in a completely different direction: my parents were looking
for a dental technician for their in-practice lab. At the time, this actually was
the perfect setup for me, not only because I could basically craft custom items
and such, but also because I was able to work half-time, which left me enough space
for my pets and even for art. A reliable paycheck was (and still is) very attractive, too, since
I could actually keep all my pets and myself fed and properly cared for.
Currently this setup is still in place, but by now I know: I need both art and animals
in my life, and the perfect lovechild of these two are pet portraits!
Since I'm working from home and not in a studio I have the advantage of always being
surrounded by my pets while I work: Pukki likes to chill on or around the couch,
while Bats and Sammy tend to surround my chair if they're not joining Pukki on the couch.
Schnuffel, who sadly had to leave us with only 11 years of age, liked to be closer
still and sometimes chilled on my shoulder while I drew. Only the mice have to
stay in their enclosures while I work. ;)
To see what I'm currently working on you can visit my accounts over at
tumblr
|
Patreon
|
Facebook
. Head over to 'contact' for even more ways to get in touch!
Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy your stay! :)
Avilio, one of my fancy mice
