A pet brings up memories of moments and moods you wish could be captured forever. Enter Jeff Lodge, an Alexandria artist who works in information technology by day and paints portraits of animals on nights and weekends.
He shows these artworks, in addition to his stunning water life and landscape paintings, in regional galleries throughout the mid-Atlantic.
He started organically and never formally trained as an artist. Still, his skill at near-photorealism combined with his almost impressionistic sense of mood is what makes his pet paintings some of the most beloved artworks collected by his clientele — and some of the best to come out of the contingent of artists side-hustling in the currently trending custom pet art market.
But what makes Lodge’s portraits different from any run-of-the-mill watercolor of your dog?
“The very first pet portrait I did is called Court Jester,” says Lodge. “My wife and I were at Eastern Market in DC, and they had like 10 of these dogs and were selling them off. I was taking these pictures, and we were both like, ‘If we don’t walk away, we’re going to end up coming home with one of these dogs.’ I think I did the painting because I started to do shows, and I needed a reference work to hang in my booths, to show that I can do pet portraits.”
Court Jester was a small piece, 10 by 12 inches. “I wanted to see if I could capture the look of an animal, especially just the facial expressions and body positions and everything — can I just, kind of, capture in this piece, a young puppy with the look of being very vulnerable? But at the same time looking out and being very keen of what’s going on, and having an anticipation of, ‘Hey, what’s next?’” Lodge says. “So, that’s what I try to do when I paint a pet portrait, is to try to capture the essence of a personality, or moment, in that painting.”
Looking through Lodge’s pet paintings, you do see an essence of the attitude of the animal — happy, sad, goofy — whatever the case may be. It’s captured in a way that makes you wonder whether Lodge somehow managed to get to know your pet on his own time.
“The eyes have a lot to do with it,” he says. He says the challenge is not only accurately painting the animal, “but actually trying to capture a feeling or thought within the animal at the same time. So, it’s not just a dog with a blank stare, but they actually show a personality.”
Becky Larimer, a McLean-based calligrapher and artist, met Lodge through his wife, Jenny, who is also a calligrapher. She approached Lodge about painting a commemorative portrait of her dog, Carmela, a chocolate labradoodle that had recently died at 13 years of age.
“I think there’s something greater than us that connects us to animals,” says Larimer. “Animals are very open and connect with people in ways we don’t understand. It’s on a different level to others, and the world around you, that society takes away from humans after a certain age.” This feeling is what she wanted Lodge to capture, even more so than the dog’s likeness.
The painting of Carmela is featured in Larimer’s media room in her walkout basement along with a portrait of her cat. The large painting is one of Larimer’s prized possessions.
“She’s on a piece of furniture that she actually totally destroyed, a loveseat that’s got this beautiful texture,” she says. “He has a beautiful way of capturing the exact feeling, and textures and colors — you think it’s real. It has beautiful light coming from the upper right corner. It’s gorgeous. He got the soul in her eyes — he’s an amazing artist who captured her beautifully, but he also has a connection with animals that is very special.”
Boulder, Colorado, resident Ann Hesskamp received a Lodge artwork as a gift. She’s an avid collector of emerging artists’ work, and the piece he gave her was of her dog, Cody, a miniature bernedoodle. The photos Lodge took became the painting of her dog, entitled Beach Bum.
“Jeff has an uncanny knack of capturing items, people, pets, and he just captures the sparkle in the eye, the detail of the fur — he just gets it,” says Hesskamp. “It kind of looks like a photograph. Just the joy the dog has on the beach — they’re free and happy — that’s why it brings me so much joy. I wish you could bottle that feeling.”
For John Lodge, the artist’s brother, and his wife, Terri, the portrait they commissioned was a gift for their daughter on her wedding day and was not of a pet but of her favorite animal, the elephant that John captured in a photograph he took while on safari in South Africa.
“The photograph I have of my daughter smiling, with the elephant in the background, in the grassy field — the painting was of the elephants in that photo. That painting just captured the essence of the trip,” says John. “That’s what this painting does for me, is capture her beaming face with the elephants, and that memory is what I see when I look at the painting.”
Feature image courtesy Jeff Lodge
This story originally ran in our June issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
