With Christmas rapidly approaching, perhaps you have already started making your list and checking it twice. Good luck with that. Finding just the right present for family and friends can be a tough job. But if that special friend or family member is also a pet owner, then here’s a unique, affordable gift idea that will make the job much easier…
Custom Pet Portraits by Rodney Allen Bentley!
As any animal-lover knows, the critters with whom we share our homes are as much a part of the family as the human members. We love them. We play with them. We take care of them. So why not also immortalize them in art?
An accomplished local artist living and working in Glens Falls, New York, Mr. Bentley is chiefly inspired by the “pure naked presence of Adirondack nature and its innate architecture.” Yet he has also made a specialty of creating lovely, eye-catching portraits of his clients’ pets (see examples below). Dogs, cats, pigs, even giraffes—you name it, he can draw it.
Interestingly, while Mr. Bentley had always shown exceptional artistic aptitude as a child, he never developed that gift, choosing instead to pursue a successful career in business. It was only later, while recovering from a life-changing traumatic brain injury, that he rediscovered his almost-forgotten talent. Working primarily with graphite, charcoal, and pastels, he has made a new career out of delighting the eye with his superb renderings of nature, animals, and architecture, among other subjects.
Bentley’s pieces have been shown at LARAC, the North Creek Widlund Gallery, and elsewhere; and many of his prints are on display and available for purchase at SPoT Coffee in Glens Falls. He currently has a seven-week holiday art show running through January at the Queensbury Hotel.
To see a more of his work online, you can visit his page at FineArtAmerica.com.
If you are interested in having Mr. Bentley create a personal, one-of-a-kind keepsake rendering of your pet (or a friend’s or family member’s), suitable for framing, please contact him at:
Phone: (518) 565-9837
Email: thruhishands@gmail
GALLERY
SHOP LOCAL — SUPPORT THE ARTS!
