My career is going to the dogs.

It all started last year, when blogger Heather B. Armstrong amazingly posted my portrait of her dog Chuck to her website, dooce.com. The response was instantaneous and impressive; my website traffic went from about 20 visitors one day to over 5,000 the next.

Then in March, I heard that Martha Stewart was launching a pet blog devoted to her beloved French Bulldogs, Sharkey and Francesca. Rolling with the momentum of the dooce.com appearance, I took a chance and decided to paint them. The uncommissioned painting soon appeared on marthastewart.com not once, but twice, and is used as a background for one of the MSLO Twitter accounts, @TheDailyWag.

I have sent a portrait of Bo Obama to the White House, but haven’t heard back on that one yet. I like to think it’s sitting on Michelle Obama’s desk right now.

I work out of my home studio which is really just a room with a desk in it and my kids’ fingerpaints all over the place. To promote my work, I rely heavily on the kindess of  strangers, namely word-of-mouth, blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

Rachael Rossman is an Oregon artist specializing in watercolor pet portraits. For more information, or to commission a piece please send an email to rachaelrossman at earthlink dot net.