Debbie Payne began seriously producing artwork about four years ago when she found a rather friendly niche. She paints pets — cats, dogs and even birds.
This past holiday the popular item was a Christmas tree ornament with a painted portrait of the buyer’s pet.
“A lot of people want white ornaments, but sometime they’ll send me a photo of a white dog,” Payne said.
“OK, I’ve got to get this white dog to show up on white,” she said with a chuckle. “But I have managed to do it.”
Payne works in the basement studio of her home in Keeneland subdivision near Bogart, where she said she turns on the background music, either country or Christian, and delves into her work.
Here she paints pets on the ornaments using acrylics, and if she does a pet painting on canvas, she uses oils.
Dog lovers are by far the people who most often commission the art, although there are plenty of cat owners who contact her as well.
Payne is married to pharmacist Ricky Payne. Their son, Jeremy, who graduated Prince Avenue Christian School, will soon get married. The couple are University of Georgia fans as Payne’s nephew, Christian Payne, is a fullback for the Bulldogs.
Since 2012, she has been spreading word about her art, which also includes paintings of other subjects from flowers to wildlife and landscapes. She has one piece of work at Sunshine Village Art Gallery in Watkinsville. Besides having a Facebook page and a website, she also markets on the website Etsy, which is popular with artists and crafts makers.
Once Payne began selling to people across the country, she took a map of the U.S. and began coloring each state to show where a piece of art was sold.
“I’m trying to get an ornament or a canvas placed in each state,” she said, adding she has already sold to residents of more than half the states and in Canada.
Payne has been interested in art since she was a child. She grew up in east Athens, a daughter of the late Donald and Marquerite Wood. Her father was manager of food services for UGA’s Georgia Center of Continuing Education, where he, and sometimes with the help of Bud Davis, would create the ice statues that were popular during banquets and wedding receptions held there.
Her father, who also had leaned toward art, enjoyed wood working as well, she said.
“In high school I always tried to take art, but I couldn’t because it always filled up,” said the 1981 graduate of Cedar Shoals High School. “In my junior or senior year, I finally got into art.” One of her pieces was selected from a class project for an exhibit at the Georgia Museum of Art.
Payne never tried selling a painting until several years ago. She was working at a bank in Oconee County and decided to paint scenes on Christmas tree ornaments for her dozen coworkers as gifts for Christmas.
One of the employees had adopted a puppy and Payne had photos of the little dog. She decided that for this young woman she would paint a portrait of the puppy.
“When everyone saw the one with the puppy, they started asking me if I could do one for them,” she recalled.
“I sort of built it up from there,” she said.
“I also do portraits on canvas. I did one for an attorney in Oconee County after I put up a flier at one of the vet’s and he saw it,” she said.
She is mostly self taught, but has taken some art classes in an effort to learn new techniques.
During the week of Christmas, one of her customers drove to her home from Greenville, S.C., to pick up an order of painted ornaments to ensure she had it for Christmas day, Payne said.
Payne’s husband has also given his wife some work. He has three UGA Bulldog mascot concrete statutes — the type kept as yard art — that were all faded.
She is restoring the paint jobs and giving Uga a new white body and a fresh red coat.
“When I hit on the pets, I really hit on something,” said the woman who paints cats and dogs.
Resource:http://onlineathens.com/oconee/2017-01-20/cats-and-dogs-bogart-artist-finds-niche-painting-pets
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