Imagine that your car is packed at full capacity, your parents are stifling choked sobs, and your younger sibling has already begun to overtake your room upstairs; you are more than ready for college move-in day. However, then you hear it, perhaps its the soft jingling of a little bell or the slight scratch of nails on the tile floor. It’s the sound of your best friend and your hardest goodbye. The thought of leaving that little ball of fluff behind is merely unbearable, and you are now the one stifling sobs are you slowly turn away.
Delaney Beaudoin .
Though leaving your pet behind is hard, Emma Yount ‘22 is here to make it a little bit easier. By hand painting custom “pet portraits” Yount hopes to help lessen the burden that comes with missing furry friends left at home.
“I think people really miss their pets when they are in college. Everybody on campus loves dogs and pets in general. Having a handmade product that can also be really personal to them, I think the combination of that, with a reasonable price has made it really successful,” said Yount.
Yount first discovered her unique talent for painting domestic creatures in her own house.“I was just looking through my room, trying to find some inspiration to paint from and I came across a picture of my dog. I just painted the portrait and it turned out kind of cool,” said Yount.
It was Yount’s mother who planted the idea of selling pet portraits after seeing how well their own family pet came out. Yount’s business has officially begun to take off after she began a serious launch for a business class project. Currently, she has sold almost 50 for her business project and around 100 to people on campus alone.
“I want to continue selling to people on campus and keeping it a reasonable price for college students because I want to bring some aspect of comfort through a portrait of somebody’s pet at home to college.”
Have a good boy or girl at home who deserves to be hand painted? Pet portraits are available to be ordered through her businesses Instagram “@eryportraits” where other previously painted pets have been posted accompanied by a short bio and fun fact about each animal.