Specializing in professional pet portraits painted in acrylic on canvas, Mindy is the artist behind The Painted Paw LLC, which has operated in the Orlando area since the beginning of 2021. Her paintings focus primarily on pets, creating bold imagery that allows the viewer to connect with the animal. From the brightness of the animal’s eyes, to the depth of color revealed in the layering of hairs, the colors and tones may seem subtle at first, but the longer you view the image, the more expanded the palette of colors and form are to see and connect with. The subject’s intensity is furthered through the abstract imagery utilized in the backdrop, gently pushing viewer’s to return to the subject. When asked, her vision is that her viewer’s will see the essence of the subject and feel what the subject’s owner must feel when they view the piece.
Mindy grew up in the small town of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where her immediate family still lives. Her father is none other than internationally acclaimed artist Peter Wolf Toth, whose giant sized Native American wooden statues series Trail of the Whispering Giants has gained him entrance to be catalogued in The Smithsonian, featured in National Geographic magazine, People magazine, at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and numerous other venues and prints. While art has always been a major presence in her life, for the last decade she has worked and continues working as a registered nurse in the Orlando, Florida area. She lives with her wife and their two dogs near downtown, enjoying the many restaurants, food trucks, local breweries, and scenic parks that the location has to offer.
“The exciting thing is that I feel I’ve just begun scraping the surface of what I can do professionally as an artist.”
~Mindy M. Toth-Padilla
I paint pets for this one simple reason:
It makes me happy. Every time I came home from my day job the first one to greet me at the door was our dog Korben. And he always acted like it was the first time he’d seen me in days and couldn’t get over the fact that I’d returned home to him and my wife. He was so full of joy that he didn’t know what to do with himself. His tail wagged spastically, he would lift his gaze upwards at me, a toothy grin emerging from his black lips, a slight whine emerged from his throat, and he would push his furry head and wet nose into my outreached hand to greet me. After a long day caring for people, this felt good. Someone glad to see me for no other reason than to show me how much they loved me and missed me.
Everyone who is a pet owner knows this feeling. This is unconditional love. This is why I paint. To capture people’s pet’s joy and love for their owner. Don’t we ALL need that and every day? The answer is yes. Let me paint something to capture that feeling!
