All In The Eyes: Your Best Friend Oil Portraits Captures a Pet's Essence

It occurs to me there have not been enough pictures of Heidi on the Patch.

Just kidding (although Heidi firmly believes this to be true).  Between her “personal photographer” Andy Sheng (who has kindly allowed us to use his dazzling professional photos of our girl for this column) and Heidi’s Dad, Alan —who paparazzi-stalks her almost daily as practice for wild animal photography for his travel company Infinite Safari Adventures — this dog has been shot from pretty much every angle. Really, how many variations are there on the theme of Heidi in the park with her Frisbee?  In fact, she was even “cartooned” on a recent visit to Santa Barbara.

But so far, Heidi has not had her portrait painted. That is, until now.

Honest, I wasn’t hinting for Heidi to become the next canine Mona Lisa when I contacted Kathi Hilburn of Sherman Oaks about her business Your Best Friend Custom Oil Portraits. There’s a chance that’s what Heidi had in mind all along, however. The dog is vain, and it's our fault. She loves nothing more than to offer a careless over-the-shoulder glance for a photo or be dressed up in a new bandana or collar.

 But I was just thinking —hey, Heidi and I write about All Things Dog in our general vicinity, and I’d seen Kathi’s wonderful portraits on her website. We feel it is our duty to highlight local talent when we see it.  We planned to go visit Kathi in her studio and see her at work, but she insisted right off that she wanted to paint Heidi.  Moreover she wanted to meet the dog at our home, in her natural habitat 

I had worked for years at the Los Angeles Times with Kathi and her husband, Robert Hilburn, the Times’ influential pop music editor and critic who retired in 2006 after 35 years on the beat.  Bob is author of the memoir Cornflakes with John Lennon and his biography of Johnny Cash will be out in early November (check his website for details).  Kathi, who left the paper in 2001, was in charge of editorial ergonomics and facilities, making sure we writers were working in a healthy environment (although she could claim no control over coffee intake, deadlines or too many slices of cold pizza).  

Kathi works from photos, but her style is her own and it’s easy to see why she needs to meet the pet in order to capture the essence.  “It’s all in the eyes, I think,” she says.  The parent of Oliver “Ollie” Hardy, an English bulldog, and boxer Katharine  “Katie” Hepburn, Kathi discovered the art of painting after leaving the L.A. Times. Formerly a student of interior decorating and design, Kathi says painting has taught her to communicate in “curved lines instead of straight ones.”

And why oil paint instead of acrylics?   Well, the official line is that oil paints provide a certain richness of color.  But Kathi readily confesses the practical reason: “I’m slow, and acrylic paint dries too fast.”

Although she is experimenting with curves, Kathi seemed most excited by Heidi’s angles:  Big pointy ears, long nose, triangle bandana.  The off-kilter perspective of the photo she selected also intrigued her.  The image provided here is a work-in-progress: we’re still waiting for the eyes. We’ll post the final version when we get it. And if you want to find out what excites Kathi Hilburn about your pet, she’d be happy to hear from you.