Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was more than just a very popular painter and illustrator for a good half of the 20th century. He also accomplished, throughout all of his work, what I think artists (even a portrait painter) are supposed to do. [continue reading…]
Here is a mother and children oil portrait in a short video, fairy-tale style.
As you might imagine, this oil portrait of a mother and her three children has a special story. I want to tell it to you in some detail. You’ll see the mother’s written words (which she graciously allowed me to share):
It began with an email that she wrote me. “I’ve looked through your website and all of your lovely portraits and talent. I don’t know how I started looking but my husband’s 40th birthday is coming up and I wanted to do something special for him. I have photographed our family since my little ones were born. Now my daughter is 7 and my twin boys are 10. Very rarely have I been in any photographs alone or with them. I thought I would like to pursue this idea of a beautiful posed but editorial-looking moment that has a classic look – not extremely modern – of my children with me for him. I would love to speak with you about this and talk about different ideas. It feels strange to put me in the art. Perhaps just the children are better but there really isn’t much of me that exists with them. I would love to take the second step and speak with you about this portrait.” [continue reading…]
Twins Oil Portraits are such a happy subject to make a video about. Photography sessions with them are uniquely fun. When you look at the video, you’ll see what I mean. It’s a special thing. No wonder parents love to capture that beautiful shared youth in oil paintings. I’ve had the pleasure to paint at least 11 sets of twins so far. (I keep having the feeling there are more that have been overlooked in the hundreds of custom oil portraits I have painted.) [continue reading…]
This is the third in the series of videos that show several portraits in the same category. This one is about women’s oil portraits.
One characteristic that each of these women have is that they are mothers. All added up, they have 16 children among them. For most, I painted their children first with separate paintings for each child so they could inherit individual portraits. Then the mothers went ahead and got portraits to reflect their own personalities. [continue reading…]
This is the second in my series of videos showing several portraits that have a relation to each other. This one is about brother sister oil portraits.
From the most casual to very dressy, they record the love of siblings in the grandest of style. Two of them came from photos that the parents had made themselves. They loved the photos so much that they wanted to make them into even more meaningful memories. When they crossed paths with me, both of the families poured out their delight in meeting someone who might be able to give them just what they had dreamed about. I couldn’t help but understand when I saw their photos. [continue reading…]
Here is the first in a series of short videos showing my oil portraits in related groups. This group covers a portrait tradition that grandparents made. Their 2 married sons and their wives gave them a total of 6 grandchildren. Voilà! 6 portraits of cousins! [continue reading…]
The reference photo for the oil portrait of Alexis was taken on a sunny day
Here are 4 ways on “how to get your photos to painted portraits” for people who want all the photography details. If you are not that kind of a person, however, don’t worry. Just contact me and I can personally direct you to use your photos to the best advantage.
1. Photos that you already have
When you have a favorite photo that you want painted into a prized custom oil portrait the best way to give me the highest quality is to send me a hi-resolution (“hi-res”) image. That means that it has a lot of megabytes (mb) so I can enlarge it to see as much detail as I want without it turning into an abstract display of [continue reading…]
This is a self-portrait made in 1991.
When I was learning to draw and paint I used to read biographies of artists that I admired. Looking back on this, I believe that time spent on this was as effective in getting me to my artistic goal of being a realistic portrait painter as time spent making pictures.
Learning about the lives of favorite artists made me realize that my life was just as ordinary (in its own very exceptional way of course) and acceptable as theirs were. There was nothing about my life that would make it difficult for me to pursue an artistic goal. In fact, though I often thought life was terribly difficult, I actually had had [continue reading…]
Ali thought that her true self was best represented in jeans. That’s how she wants to be remembered.
Ali’s mother asked me sort of timidly what I would think about a casual oil portrait of her beautiful teenage daughter in jeans. She actually liked the idea but was worried that I might not. I exclaimed “Terrific!” without reservation. I think it is great when a teenager has an opinion about how they want to be remembered.
Soon after that we did the photoshoot and got some wonderful shots. Next and as usual, I enjoyed the time I spent with the sketch of this pretty girl becoming more and more real as she looked out at me from my easel while I painted. When the portrait was finished both mother and daughter were very proud of their new very special [continue reading…]
This is an oil portrait of Dr. Megan Shields, a tireless, giving MD who passed away last month. I’m honored to have painted her.
I want to salute Megan Shields who passed away last month. She was a family doctor who helped so many people, including me at different times over the years. Like the old-time family doctor, she was held in very high esteem. Although she could prescribe drugs and even hospitalization when absolutely needed, she consistently looked for natural ways to handle conditions too. You could unfailingly count on her cleverness, honesty and warm understanding. She was so approachable. You could call her just “Megan” without for a minute forgetting her esteemed standing as a tireless healer.
I painted her in 1998. She said she loved the portrait, it was so “her”, and she delighted in seeing her pearls. She hung it in her office at first. [continue reading…]
