Michael Pizzella paints your dog — or your grandmother, or your wedding day — from photographs, by hand, in oil. Jackson Square pedigree, thirty years a Louisiana framer. Shipped framed from the Mandeville studio.
Every portrait starts with a photograph you already love. Mike paints from it — not over it — in oil on linen, with the kind of patience that doesn't survive in a world of phone filters. Drag the handle on any of these to compare the source photo with the finished painting.
— Each commission is one-of-one. No prints, no reproductions. Begin yours →
A commission is a quiet correspondence between you and Mike. He'll never paint a dog he can't see in three photographs. He'll never quote by email what he can say on the phone. Here is the whole of it.
Natural light, eye-level, no phone portrait-mode blur. One close on the face, one of the whole dog, one you love for reasons you can't explain. Mike will reply within 48 hours.
— cell phones are fine.Mike proposes a size (12×16, 16×20, 24×30), a pose from your photos, and a price. Half down holds the spot on the easel. No surprises after, no up-sell, no design fee.
— 50% holds it.Four to six weeks of oil on linen. You'll get two progress photographs — an underpainting and a near-finish. Request one change, not twelve. Mike drinks a lot of coffee at this stage.
— two revisions, free.Framed in the Pizzella shop — your choice of profile, or let Mike pick. Varnished, wired, double-boxed, and shipped worldwide with tracking. Local pickup welcome; coffee included.
— ships anywhere.— balance due only when you approve the finished painting. if you hate it, you don't pay. it has not happened. —
Portraits, pets, still life, saints, odd commissions, Jackson Square street scenes. Scroll slowly — these are one-of-one oils, and every one has a person at the other end of it.
Showing 24 of 412 works · Archive at the studio
Commission one like these →Pet portraiture is what people travel for. The framing shop is what's kept the lights on since the Hotmail era. Original work for collectors who know what they're looking at. That's it — no classes, no prints, no merch.
Oil on linen, painted from your photographs. Dogs, cats, horses, the occasional goat. One revision round included. Framed and shipped worldwide.
Hand-cut mats, conservation glass, 600+ mouldings in stock. Diplomas, jerseys, star-maps, oversized oils. Mike does every cut himself.
Work from the studio not on commission — Louisiana landscapes, still life, Jackson Square scenes. Delivered framed. Inventory rotates monthly.
Thirty years at the easel — first on the fence-line of Jackson Square, now in a quiet shop at the Market at Chenier.
Mike moved across the lake in 1994 — tired of New Orleans summers and twenty-dollar tourist portraits. He opened a framing shop to pay for the paint. The framing shop stayed. So did the painting. Four decades in, he's painted a president's spaniel, a saint's reliquary, a Saints linebacker's weimaraner, and around six hundred other dogs whose names he still remembers.
He works alone. He answers his own phone. He prefers brown butter over plug-ins and palette knives over software. He'll never take a rush job he isn't proud of, and he'll tell you so honestly before he ever takes your deposit.
— he answers the phone himself. he always has.
Walk in, watch a painting happen, leave with a frame. There's always coffee on and usually a dog somewhere. Take the causeway — twenty-five minutes from the French Quarter.
We sent three phone photos of Layla. What came back was a painting our grandchildren will fight over. Mike called to ask about her eyes. Nobody asks anymore.