Cali, a French Bulldog, sitting beside her own finished portrait on canvas
Cali, beside her portrait

The atelier

It started with my own dog.

Cali is my dog, and she is the first portrait we ever made. I never wanted a novelty print, the kind that ends up in a drawer behind the spare cables. I wanted something I would actually hang in the hallway and still like in ten years. So we rendered her in the classical oil style and printed it on real canvas, and it came back better than I expected. That is where Inkpaw started, and she holds No. 0001 for it.

Every commission since gets the same test: would I hang it in my own home. If the answer is no, we do it again, at no cost to you. You see yours before it is ever printed, exactly as I saw Cali’s.

Gancho · Founder, Inkpaw

What the house
actually does

Stated plainly, because a visitor deciding whether to trust us with a photograph and a hundred pounds deserves the method in the same breath as the promise.

  • Method
    Created with AI, refined by hand

    Each portrait is created with AI, rendered in the style of a classical oil painting, then directed and refined by hand until the likeness is unarguable. We say so here, on the product page, at the desk and in the fine print, because a disclosure that arrives after you have decided is not a disclosure.

  • Curation
    One archetype per sitter

    We choose the school that suits the animal rather than offering a menu of eighty filters. Sensei took the Dutch manner because the blaze on his chest carries light; Rayan took the Spanish court. The studies that lost are kept, and some of them argue.

  • The gate
    Nothing prints without you

    Approval is not a formality here, it is the gate. No canvas is ordered, no ink is spent and no fulfilment begins until you have seen the portrait and said yes.

  • The ledger
    Every portrait is entered

    Cali holds No. 0001; Sensei, Aya, Rayan, Tomy and Mia followed. The number is assigned when the portrait is made, printed on the certificate that travels with the canvas, and it is never reused. Yours will carry the next.

Love it, or we make it right.

You approve the portrait before a drop of ink is spent, and every canvas leaves the atelier under our seal. If it does not stop you in the doorway, we do it again or refund you. No return postage, no argument.

  • PreviewBefore we print, every time
  • 100 daysRepaint or refund, your call
  • BritainPrinted and stretched in the UK

Entered in the commission ledger at Reigate

Inkpaw is a GoSmartR brand, run from Reigate in Surrey. The atelier accepts a limited number of commissions each season, and there is one person at the desk. Write to hello@inkpaw.co.uk and it is me who answers.

Begin a commission In memory