When my work is like a steakhouse dinner…

Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard and his portrait are back in the news today, this time with reporting by Steve Law of the Portland Tribune.

Direct-ness

Direct eye contact from a portrait is powerful tool, and one that I’m careful about using.

On starting and finishing

It’s always easier to begin a painting than it is to finish one.  Starting makes the mood; completing requires one. 

Legos and cupcakes and crayons, o my!

Making portraits in paint on canvas is less than hip these days, but photography isn’t to blame this time around.  Herb William’s crayon portraiture (not made with crayons on paper but made from the little wax sticks themselves) is just one of the many new forms of this old genre. 

Second chance

We’re all chameleons to some degree, adapting our attitudes, expressions, and manners to our environments.  A single portrait often can’t capture all the truths about a single person—and especially if that person is a drag queen!

“Hand it over, sister.”

When Kevin Cook says so, I listen!

Research for a painting.

There’s research and then there’s research!  Sometimes going to a drag show is the only way to get a painting done.

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