Page 295 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

HE name Diana Thorne immediately calls up a picture of a most successful
artist. Yet Miss Thorne had a tremendously difficult time just earning enough
to keep body and soul together until she found the way to capitalize her skill.
Like many another person with a talent, many a man or woman with a clever
business idea, she lacked the right slant on her work. She failed to specialize;
she made no effort to stand out from the crowd.

Miss Thorne had all the advantages of study in Germany and England. But in
London, when nineteen years old (this was at the beginning of the war), she
sold and mended typewriters, worked as a reporter, as a typist, as a scenario
writer—anything to make some sort of living. She could find no demand for
her sketches and almost despaired of getting ahead. When she returned to
New York, she turned to typing to earn a living for herself and younger sister
and brother. She admits that today she might still be struggling along except
for a dog. She found him in a pet shop, and while his antecedents were
probably not to be checked too carefully, he made a marvelous model. She
was amused by his puppy antics, the clumsiness of his pudgy body and the
frequent expressions of bewilderment at the strange world about him. She
sketched him and sketched him, and in 1926 Diana Thorne sold her first dog
picture—a young girl skating at breakneck speed behind a terrier. She called
it “Rollin’ Home”—and it clicked. Just putting an appealing little pup in a
picture made the difference between “sold” and “no sale.”

She found that nine out of ten people like dogs—especially puppies. A
picture of a puppy just “gets them.” So with pencil and brush she pictured
them in every conceivable mood, every sort of pose. The more Diana Thorne
sketched dogs the better she sketched them. People stopped to look at her
sketches because the puppies were appealing. Then they took a second look
for these puppies were real dogs. Diana Thorne had made a hit with the great
mass of dog lovers. Before long, dog owners were requesting her to do
sketches of their own dogs. Today, pedigreed pets are brought to her from all
over the world to have their portraits done. She has become a dog illustrator
of renown both here and in Europe. You look at the pictures of her Scotties
and think they are the best she has done. Then you see the Spaniels, and you
think they are the most cunning. Yet the Boston Terriers may intrigue you
even more. Diana Thorne has “arrived.”