Miniature schnauzer portraits in Quill & Ink

A German farm ratter with a beard and a gentleman's brows

The miniature schnauzer is the smallest of the three schnauzer breeds. German farmers bred the Standard Schnauzer down in size to make a fearless barnyard ratter, and the miniature was shown as a breed of its own as early as 1899. The AKC recognized it in 1926 and places it in the Terrier Group, though its blood is wholly Continental: Standard Schnauzer, Affenpinscher and Poodle, with none of the British stock behind nearly every other terrier.

That mix shows in its temperament. The breed standard asks for a dog that is alert and spirited yet obedient to command, friendly, intelligent and willing to please, never overaggressive or timid. Owners know the result: a sturdy dog of 12 to 14 inches that patrols the yard for critters, makes a keen watchdog, and is happiest doing whatever the family is doing.

The look is unmistakable. The head is strong and rectangular, and thick whiskers, a bushy beard and long eyebrows give the face what the AKC calls a charming, human-like expression. The double coat is hard and wiry over a close undercoat, and the standard allows three colors: salt and pepper, black and silver, and solid black. On a salt and pepper or black and silver dog, the color fades to light gray or silver white in the eyebrows, the whiskers, the cheeks, under the throat, across the chest and down the leg furnishings.

Ears may be cropped, standing with pointed tips, or left natural, small and V-shaped and folded close to the skull. The standard tail is docked, set high and carried erect. Show dogs keep their wiry texture by being hand-stripped, while most pet owners have the coat clipped by a groomer every five to eight weeks, so the dog next door usually wears a clipped pet trim, short on the body with the beard, brows and leg furnishings left longer.

Quill & Ink on a schnauzer

Quill & Ink is a PetPaintings house style: a portrait drawn in fine black pen line on white paper, with a light wash of color laid under the ink. The fur is built up from short strokes and cross-hatching, dense where the coat is dark and sparse where it is pale, so the paper itself becomes the lightest hairs.

Few breeds suit it like the miniature schnauzer. The style's own words name the scruffy brows and the whiskers, and a schnauzer is mostly those. The pen draws the beard hair by hair, sweeps the eyebrows out over the eyes, and leaves the silver furnishings almost bare white against the hatched darker coat, which is exactly how a salt and pepper or black and silver dog is marked.

The pen also keeps the outline of a well-trimmed dog: the flat topskull, the rectangular head, the square body and the short upright tail. A solid black schnauzer reads through the density of the hatching and a gray wash, with the brows and beard picked out in finer lines.

Each painting follows its own photo. A dog photographed on a porch, a rug or a lawn can keep that place, drawn in the same pen line and wash as the dog, and a cropped or natural ear is drawn just as the photo shows it.

For the schnauzer who supervises everything

A pen portrait suits a dog whose whole personality sits in its eyebrows. It works for the owner of a gray-muzzled senior who has guarded the front window for a decade, for a family with a new puppy in its first schnauzer trim, and for anyone who has ever cleaned a wet beard after the water bowl.

Any clear phone photo of the dog is enough, and one photo can hold more than one pet. The painting appears before anything is paid for, another photo or another style costs nothing, and only the painting that is approved is printed.