Getting the Perfect Cody Painting

Our little Cody passed on March 6, 2026 unexpectedly, and we've done a number of things to keep his memory alive. One of them was to get a painting made of him that would join the wall with several of the other kids who passed. Today's blog is about the trial of that.

(Image: The 2 different paintings of Cody we received. We sent the one on the right back and the the one on the left came afterward that we kept. In the middle are Cody's photos).

Our friends Michael and Brian introduced us to the "Paint Your Life" website where you submit a photo of anyone person or pet, and they assign an artist to bring them to life in a painting. In fact, they sent us paintings of Dolly, Franklin, Tyler and Dash and we are forever grateful.

When Cody passed, we expected they would do that for him (and they said they were!!) but we intercepted them, and sent Cody's photo to Paint Your Life (after going through a lot of pictures).

(Photo: the paintings of Dolly, Franklin, Tyler and Dash (in that order) that Michael and Bryan commissioned and surprised us with after each of their passings)

When we got the first painting back, the portrait was nice, but we thought it didn't really look like Cody and capture him. We felt bad for contacting the company, but because the amazing artists that captured Dolly, Franklin, Tyler and Dash were mind-blowing, we were disappointed. Fortunately, Paint Your Life was sympathetic. We didn't want the artist to feel badly either. There was just something missing. 

APPROVED THE 2ND VERSION - When we received the proof of the second painting, we agreed that was our Cody. Cody's portrait now hangs on the wall with the other four kids and we are very grateful to the Paint Your Life customer service folks, and to both artists. 

2 OTHER NOTES - We did commission Paint Your Life to do a painting of a famous dog name Stuie, and it looked just like him!  Eventually, I will also commission one of their artists to do paintings of Sprite and Buzz, too.