This dog art collage of 3 loved dogs for Pam was crafted from her cell phone photos she emailed me. A handmade etching (using sunshine, metal, ink and a printing press) was created for each doggie picture.

HOW A DOG ART COLLAGE IS MADE

All 3 inked etching plates were lined up on the press and paired with the dampened Italian fine art paper. Here is the almost-finished artwork (not yet matted).

From left to right are her loves: Ozzie, her alpha Rottweiler, Jane her black lab that passed last year from a rattlesnake bite, and Lombardi the mixed breed who is her goofy boy.

BEFORE AND AFTER – TRANSFORMATION TO FINE ART

As you can see in the before and after photos below, the first step of the process was retouching each dog’s snapshot she sent. Every image needed some TLC, for example, taking emojis out of the image and removing distracting background elements, especially in Ozzie’s photo.

I cropped these photos to working size and sent them off to my retoucher.

Once the background distractions were removed, I could finish with a little dodging and burning to perfect the image to be printed to transparency and then burned to a light sensitive plate. After each plate was inked, it was paired with dampened fine art paper and hand-cranked through my printing press. (View the short Video of how a pet etching is made.)

FINAL DOG ART CREATED:

Once I had run a pass on each image and got all 3 exactly as I wanted them, I could finally ink again all 3 plates and press into ONE final fine art cotton paper to finish off Pam’s Dog Art Collage. I carefully double-matted this dog art collage and wrapped it up for Pam. After I arrived and she opened her packaged artwork, I signed her dog art collage and took a quick phone snap:

Pam’s trio collage was hand-delivered by me to her workplace. She is the manager at Dogtopia South Coast in the Santa Ana / Costa Mesa area of Orange County, CA. Pam feels so passionately about her own dogs, as well as her clients’. Visit Dogtopia if you’re ever in town to see the beautiful facility there and Pam’s 10×20 collage in her office! There is also a fun square etching collage in the lobby of Dogtopia South Coast’s first 3 doggie clients: Emi, Chloe and Muffin.

ORDER YOUR OWN DOG ART:

Whose furry face(s) are you wanting to have turned into a special keepsake to enjoy for decades? Email me some pictures or go see pet etching sizes and prices.

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