For this week’s Made In Connecticut, News 12 met a Bridgeport-based artist whose work has a bold and colorful take on man's best friend.

For Russell Miyaki, painting had always been the ideal complement to his work in advertising design and marketing. But when the pandemic hit, his paintings took a turn.

Miyaki says he was painting how the world made him feel. He says the paintings were abstract, they were dark. And then one day, he says he was sitting on the couch, his dog sat on his lap and that moment was the epiphany when it hit him that the feeling he was getting is the expression that he wants to paint.

Miyaki is now a contemporary dog artist. His portraits of dogs are expressions of that hidden moment between the relationship between a dog and their owner.

He also donates a portion of his sales to animal rescue and adoption groups. For more information, click here.