What Is It About Dogs That Makes Artists Want to Paint Them?

At Arts to Hearts Project, we have always believed that the subjects artists choose to paint are never random. They are always personal. Always meaningful. Always connected to something the artist carries inside them that needs to find its way onto a canvas. And sometimes that something has fur, four legs, and a way of looking at you that no human ever quite manages.

101 Art Book: Dog Edition brought together over 100 contemporary artists from around the world, each interpreting dogs through their own deeply personal lens. Across painting, photography, textiles, mixed media, and visual storytelling, this collection explores what dogs mean to the people who love them and the artists who choose to paint them. It is a book built not just to be looked at, but to be felt.

A few days ago we brought you some of those stories. The grief and the joy and the loyalty and the childhood companions and the moments that stayed long after they passed. And the responses kept coming. So we went back. Because when artists are this honest about what drew them to a subject, you do not stop the conversation. You keep it going.

Here are five more. Five more artists. Five more reasons. Five more stories that live behind the work.

Not what a dog looks like. What a dog feels like. That is a completely different painting

Most portraits begin with observation. You look at your subject, you study the form, you try to capture the likeness with enough precision that anyone who knows that subject would recognise them. That is one kind of painting. And then there is the kind that begins somewhere else entirely. Not with what the eye sees but with what the body senses. The quality of a presence. The feeling of something that is almost there and almost gone at the same time.

Varvara Glazyrina @aureum_object describes it this way:

“I didn’t want to depict a dog as a fixed or literal form. Instead, I was drawn to its movement and fragility, especially this elongated, almost disappearing presence. The image developed as something in between a body and a trace, where the figure feels unstable and shifting rather than clearly defined, creating a sense of perceptual ambiguity. It became more about a feeling than a recognizable subject”

Varvara Glazyrina

Something in between a body and a trace. That phrase does something. Because it describes exactly the quality of presence that dogs leave in a room, in a life, in a memory. Not fixed. Not literal. More like a feeling that lingers after the thing itself is gone. Varvara was not trying to paint a dog. She was trying to paint what a dog does to the air around it. And we think that is one of the most honest artistic intentions we have ever read.

Some connections do not need language. A dog walking beside you at sunset is proof of that

We have all seen it. A person walking alone with their dog at the end of the day. And somehow it never looks lonely. Because there is something in the way a dog moves beside you that makes the whole world feel less vast. Less silent. Like you are not moving through it alone even when nobody is watching and nothing is being said. Those moments are small. And they are everything.

Gultakin Nasibova @gultakinsart held onto one of them:

“I chose to paint a dog as a symbol of quiet companionship within the vastness of nature. I was inspired by the memory of a solitary figure walking with his dog at sunset, a moment filled with stillness, trust, and quiet understanding, where both seemed completely present within the landscape and gently connected to the rhythm of nature. The dog represents loyalty and a deep, unspoken connection between human and nature”

Gultakin Nasibova

She did not witness anything dramatic. Just a man and his dog at sunset. Completely present. Completely together. And she could not let it go. Because that kind of quiet loyalty is rare. The kind that does not ask for anything. Does not need to be acknowledged. Just walks beside you. Through the landscape. Through the light. Through whatever the day brought. Gultakin painted it because some moments deserve to outlast the evening they happened in.

Love at first sight does not always make sense. Sometimes it just happens anyway

Some fears are old. So old you forget they are even fears anymore. They just become the quiet reason you cross the street, or tense up slightly, or say no thank you without really thinking about it. Carried for years without questioning. Built into the small daily decisions that shape how you move through the world. Until something comes along that simply does not fit inside the fear. And everything shifts.

Louise Renée @louiserenee3844 tells it like this:

“I’ve never wanted a dog because I was bitten by a boxer when I was a child. But when I saw Buddy for the first time, it was love at first sight. Buddy was so affectionate, joyful, and full of vitality that he quickly became a woman’s best friend. Because of him, I’m no longer afraid of dogs. And because of him, I’ve met many other dog lovers!”

Louise Renée

We love everything about this. The years of perfectly justified caution. The completely unexpected love at first sight. And Buddy, being entirely himself, joyful and affectionate and full of life, simply not leaving room for the fear to stay. Because of him she is no longer afraid. Because of him she has a whole new part of her life. Some dogs do not just become your friend. They become the reason everything after them looked a little different.

Some artists find their subject. Others find it already waiting on the sofa

Not every creative breakthrough happens dramatically. Sometimes it is just a matter of looking at what is already in front of you. What has been there the whole time. Patient and present and completely unbothered by the fact that you have been searching everywhere else when the answer was right there, probably asleep in a patch of sunlight, completely unaware that it was about to become someone’s muse.

Jade Eynon @jadeveart found hers exactly like that:

“Early on, I struggled to find sitters, so my two dogs naturally became my muses. Focusing on animals grounds me in the world around me, letting me capture subtle details like the layered textures and light in their fur that others often overlook. Learning through direct observation, where my instinctive use of colour, value, and brush pressure echoes those qualities more vividly than fine details”

Jade Eynon

The layered textures and light in their fur that others often overlook. That is the detail that says everything about how Jade sees. Not just what a dog looks like from a distance but what it looks like when you actually stop and look. The way light moves through fur. The way colour and value shift in ways that a photograph flattens but a painter can hold. Her dogs did not just give her a subject. They taught her how to observe. And that is a completely different and far more valuable thing.

A stray dog. A locked gaze. A photograph that asked all the right questions

Dogs do not pretend. They do not arrange their expression for the camera or hold a pose or decide how they want to be remembered. They are just there. Fully. And in that fullness they give you something that is almost impossible to manufacture. A moment of complete honesty that exists for a second and then is gone forever unless someone was paying close enough attention to catch it.

Janih Ch. Luethi @janih_luethi was paying attention:

“I chose to photograph a dog because their expressions shift in an instant, and photography can preserve that fleeting honesty in a way nothing else can. I’m drawn to how dogs communicate emotion so openly — through their eyes, posture, and presence. Once, a stray dog locked eyes with my lens and held still just long enough to feel like a silent conversation before disappearing. It was such a brief encounter, yet it stayed with me. That moment shaped how I see connection, presence, and trust, and influenced the way I approach this work. Through photographing dogs, I’m interested in capturing not just animals, but relationships, vulnerability, and those quiet exchanges that reveal something deeply human within seemingly ordinary moments”

Janih Ch. Luethi

A stray dog held her gaze just long enough. And then it walked away. That was it. No name, no context, no way of knowing anything about where it came from or where it was going. Just a moment of eye contact through a lens that felt, for a second, like a real conversation. Brief encounters like that should disappear. This one did not. And we think that says everything about why Janih photographs what she photographs.

Five artists. Five completely different reasons. And not one of them was simply about painting a dog.

A figure dissolving into feeling rather than form. A sunset walk that carried more meaning than most photographs ever could. A childhood fear that one joyful dog dismantled in an afternoon. Two muses who were already living in the house, waiting to be noticed. And a stray dog who held a gaze just long enough to change how an artist sees everything.

None of these are really stories about dogs. They are stories about what dogs make possible in us. The way they open something. The way they stay, in the memory, in the work, in the quiet parts of a life long after the encounter is over.

That is what 101 Art Book: Dog Edition set out to capture. Not portraits. Presences. And if these stories moved you the way they moved us, the book is at the link below.

And if you are an artist with work that carries that same kind of feeling, submissions are now open for The Big Book of Mixed Media Artists 2026. A curated international collection for artists who work across mediums, layer materials, and create in ways that cannot be neatly categorised. If that sounds like your practice, the link is below.