Now it seems so second nature, but, when I began painting portraits, eye glasses worried me.  I’m not sure what I would have done if Margo had come to me with her wavey frames just four short years earlier!

Back then, I often asked a subject to remove her-his glasses during part of the photo-session, so that I would be able to work with a reference image that did not have the distortion of the lenses (magnifying or shrinking the person’s eyes).  On at least one occasion, I simply painted the portrait from a supposed reference image.

Facial hair fell in the same category as glasses.  While I never asked anyone to shave for me, the early portrait of this be-spectacled and be-goatied man was a challenge.

To learn more about the making of this portrait, please visit this article on my blog.