Sitting pretty, off the leash

Artists answer the call for portraits of pets that capture quirks and charm

Denise Lindquist's dog Ari sits in front of a portrait by Jane O'Hara. ''Ari's Night'' is on display at Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville as part of ''Best In Show: Artists and Their Dogs.'' (Erik jacobs for the boston globe)

Ari is a Chihuahua with an outsized personality, which you can learn from Jane O'Hara's painting "Ari's Night."

"He's this very small dog, but he doesn't know it," said Denise Lindquist of Raynham. "The painting shows this big shadow of him. I think he really thinks he's that size. . . . She portrayed a very small Chihuahua in a very big way, the way he sees himself."

The shadow wasn't in any of the pictures Lindquist provided to the artist when commissioning the portrait. "She came up with that. I think it was brilliant," Lindquist said. "An artist's interpretation is more able to capture the character of a dog than a photograph would."

Portraits of cats and dogs have long been a staple of the pet industry, but now hipper, more affluent pet owners are commissioning more adventurous, less-kitschy portraits that can even find a home on gallery walls.

"I enjoy trying to catch their personalities or a certain sense of dignity I believe animals have into their portraits," said O'Hara, who sells prints at www.janeohara.com and donates part of her proceeds to PETA. "It's quite a thing these days. Pets are big business."

"Ari's Night" and some of O'Hara's other paintings are part of "Best In Show: Artists and Their Dogs" at Brickbottom Gallery. Brickbottom artist David Sholl, who organized "Best in Show," says he doesn't know if there's a trend, but he understands well the appeal of dog-centric art: "The tone is very sort of upbeat. Most people express joy at having their dogs, and I think for the most part it's eye candy, it's delightful stuff. . . . Most people express a joyfulness about their dogs."

O'Hara started out painting portraits of people, but she tired of "the extra layer of trying to figure out how this person wanted to be seen or how they see themselves." She's been painting animals for six or seven years, while splitting her time between Boston and Rhode Island.

"Even with my animal paintings I will do portraits in a more traditional manner if that's what people would like," she said, "but what I prefer to do is get to know the animal as well as I can and then put it in a setting that I think speaks to its personality . . . and if people like it, they can buy it. I like the freedom that comes with that."

With young couples postponing having children - especially in the current economic environment - their pets get even more of their attention and disposable income than ever. "People are devoting more attention, spending more money, getting them better gifts," said Brian Henderson, editor of DogBoston webzine (www.care.dogboston.com).

Anastasia Robbins of Newton started out last year painting pet portraits for friends and family, and then found herself working to finish a handful of commissions for Christmas, with more in the pipeline. She charges from $80 to $425 through her website, www.snoringboris.com, named for her dog. "People that I've gotten so far are younger, mostly mid-20s to mid-30s, doing them as Christmas gifts or birthday gifts," Robbins said. "The people coming to me are finding that I can give them a twist on a sort of urban scale that isn't hokey - it's fun, it's decorative. Mostly it's people who don't really have kids yet. People who are attached to their pets in the way they would attach to children were they to have them."

Of course, nearly every pet owner now has gigabytes of hard-drive space devoted to digital snapshots of their beloved collie or cockatoo, just like every parent has a zillion baby pictures. "I think having [a painting] done really slows down the capture process and lets you stick something on the wall that you can actually remember, instead of breezing through a couple of digital camera photos," Henderson said.

Newburyport artist Helen Pinsky, who paints as Olivia Clove, said she has painted perhaps 30 dogs in the past two years, more than half of them commissions. "I told a woman what I was doing and she said, 'Oh, I have to show you a picture of my dog,' and she pulls out her phone. I find out later that she has three children, but there are no pictures of them on the phone."