This artist is no dog

Nathan Janes becoming nationally known for painting pups

By JILL FICK - NH correspondent

Artists receive their inspiration from any number of sources. With a business named Pop ARF, it's easy to guess what motivates Port Clinton artist Nathan Janes.

Janes paints dogs, but his style is hardly that simple. He uses bold colors to capture each subject's unique personality in a manner that blends Urban Pop and Modern Art. And his work has been gaining national attention. He was featured as an emerging artist in the June issue of Art Business News, the nation's largest trade magazine.

As a student at Port Clinton High School, Janes didn't see art in his plans for the future.

"I didn't start out with art in high school," he said. "My brother (Josh) was always the artist. I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I was in high school."

His first thought was to become a veterinarian.

"But I didn't realize how smart you needed to be and how much reading you had to do," he said with a grin.

Eventually his brother, as well as comic books and animated cartoons, inspired the younger Janes. Like his brother before him, Janes took advanced placement art at PCHS with teacher Jeanie Radloff. That class prepared him for his next step -- The Columbus College of Art and Design.

"What I learned in high school really helped me in college," he said.

During the summers in his first two years in college, Janes drew caricatures at Cedar Point. But it was a college roommate, Adam Grimm of Elyria, who drew Janes in another direction.

"I realized that type of work wasn't what I wanted," he said. "I wanted to do wildlife like he was doing.

"(Grimm) was unbelievably talented. He won the Federal Duck Stamp contest. At 21, he was the youngest to ever do that. Kids used to come to our room just to see him. He was the one who influenced me to get into wildlife."

The problem was Janes, convinced he was headed more toward cartoons and comic books, didn't really take his painting classes seriously. During his senior year, he turned that around in order to compete with the other wildlife artists.

He eventually competed in the Federal Duck Stamp contest and entered other wildlife contests, but something was missing.

"I loved what I was doing, but the painting just didn't feel natural," he said.

He decided to go back to illustrating and considered creating a children's storybook about a duck. That was the first step toward what his pop art style is today.

"I pushed the wildlife into the background and decided to bring up something new and fresh," he said.

Adopting a dog from the humane society, and making it the subject of his work, was the next critical decision.

"It meant a lot more to me than wildlife," he said.

Pop art, which is characterized by bright colors and images that are recognizable, became his style. He said it is similar to the modern art of well-known artists Roy Lichtenstein and Peter Maxx.

"My art is on the terms of pop art or urban art which is driven from graffiti and bright colors," he said.

Because he paints exclusively dogs, Pop ARF was an appropriate name choice. Being a one-man operation, he then needed to find a market for his work.

"I do a lot of research," he said. "I spend a lot of time emailing, making contacts, promoting myself and letting them know I exist."

It has worked. That was how Susanne Casgar, Editorial Director of Art Business News in Cleveland, found Janes.

"We have various departments in our magazine and we ask artists to submit their work," she said. "He sent his information to us. We thought it was very clever, and he has a very clever way of marketing himself.

"He's just very upbeat in the way he markets himself and in his art. He has the right approach."

Janes and Pop ARF was also the subject of an article in a recent issue of Animal Fair, a "lifestyle magazine for animal lovers."

He is doing Christmas issue covers for Tails, Inc. which has regional magazines in Chicago, Indianapolis, Minnesota/St. Paul and Michigan.

And covers for the Sacramento (Calif.) Pet Gazette and the Pet Gazette (Tenn.) will be coming out soon.

Janes also has art in the Mid-Day Gallery in Englewood, N.J. and the West End Art Gallery in Winston-Salem, N.C.

He likes the decisions he's made.

"I didn't feel like I was getting the style I wanted until I got into painting dogs," he said. "It's more natural, and I didn't have to think as much. I just painted."

He now has two dogs, Button and Zipper, that he adopted from the humane society.

"They kind of keep me going everyday, giving me creative ideas," he said.

He wants to help non-profit organizations spread the word about the benefits of adopting the thousands of dogs nationwide that need homes.

He hopes that his art can be used to solicit donations for groups like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Janes is currently working on a painting of "Les," a neglected dog near death that a shelter in Florida took in and rehabilitated.

"Maybe we can make some prints or posters to go toward raising funds for them," he said.

Janes uses acrylic gouache paint mixed at times with straight acrylics.

It can take three to four weeks to complete one painting because he is very meticulous in his work.

"My lines are clean, the colors flat," he said. "It takes a lot of time to keep the color consistent and flat."

Through it all, Janes believes he is a self-made artist.

"I don't consider myself a born artist," he said. "I never considered myself talented. Where I am now came out of sweat and hard work. I'm not gifted. I just took the opportunity to build myself into an artist."

Make that a humble, self-made artist.

Originally published September 12, 2005