Dina Marie is a compassionate animal lover & pet artist. Her artwork is inspired by the pets she has rescued throughout her life; specializing in Labrador retrievers. She creates cards and prints of her original paintings; realistic pet portraits, pet memorials AND brightly colored whimsical pet illustrations.
Dina Marie is a self taught pet artist who began drawing her little Scottie dog when she was just 7 years old. Since childhood she feels she has had a deep connection with animals and attributes her ability to capture a pets true personality in her paintings as a gift from God. As a young adult Dina created & painted vintage signs on old barn boards & other Country Folk art mostly focused on animals. It wasn’t until she suffered the loss of many pets that she began to experiment with painting pet portraits. Painting her animals has been therapeutic and beneficial to continue to remember each and every one of them. Not limited to cats and dogs, Dina has painted horses, rabbits, dolphins and many other animals in realistic detail, some of which can be seen in the children’s book she illustrated; Roxy’s Forever Home. In addition to lifelike portraits Dina also enjoys painting brightly colored whimsical paintings which you will see in her illustrations for books, greeting cards and prints. Much of these illustrations have been inspired by the dogs she rescued over the years. You can see her black Lab ‘Mario’; who crossed the Rainbow Bridge a few years ago in many of her illustrations. Mario was her best friend & they shared a special bond! He taught her many things about life and she wanted to do something special to remember the great dog that he was. Since Dina enjoyed illustrating Roxys Forever Home she decided a great way to honor Mario and all her other rescues was to create her own book. She illustrated whimsical paintings of labrador retrievers with inspirational messages in a small gift book titled ‘ A Peaceful Place‘. The book is both therapeutic and brings a lot of joy to those who love dogs.
Dina has an online ETSY shop and sells her work at a local shop in Dunedin; MY FAVORITE THINGS.
She donates a portion of her sales to multiple animal welfare groups a few times each year.
Always willing to take on new projects for animals she painting a puppy bank for Southeastern Guide Dogs of Fl
Each puppy bank has a donation dog bowl; a great project to help raise funds and awareness for Southeastern Guide dogs. They breed and train service dogs with much success!
Other Art Projects:
2016 Paint Party proceeds benefit Our Companions Animal Rescue- Sunset Pets
2016 Wine & Design – Teaching painting parties for fun, all styles and subjects.
2015 Middletown Adult Education – Paint your Pet painting classes; 3 week class.
2014 Middletown Art Academy – Paint your Pet Painting Class
2014 Climate Change Call For Art, Dina submitted two paintings to a Vermont exhibition on Climate Change
2014 Raining Cats & Dogs for Windsor Education Foundation – Artistically decorated Fiberglass Cats & Dogs to promote Art and Creativity! Two of my Labrador Retrievers designs were selected for me to paint for the auction, ‘Beach Lab’ and ‘Guardian Angel Lab’ in honor of Mario.
2013 -2015 painted 3 murals for a Connecticut-based Animal Sanctuary; ‘Our Companions Animal Rescue’. I donated a portion of the proceeds back to the rescue.
2013 – 2015 Assistant to artist Susan Rosano of New England Expressive Arts – We taught elementary school children to paint murals and oil drum art throughout schools in Connecticut.
2012 Illustrated children’s book about a homeless dog; ‘Roxy’s Forever Home’.
2008 -2009 Masonicare -Expressive Arts Therapist for Hospice patients
2008 Paws for a Cause – Windsor Education Foundation – Artistically decorated dogs and cats to promote art and creativity. German Shepard design was selected for me to paint.
2007 – Developing Art Institute – Lets go Wild Week! Drawing & Painting animals with children