This is supposed to be my niece, Cassie, but it does not look much like her. After completing it, I realized that to be a good portraitist, I would need to do a portrait a day for a long while. I did one the next day, but then realized that I actually have no interest in painting portraits. I would like to be able to do them if necessary, and I have tremendous respect for artists who have mastered portraiture, but at the end of the day, I get little thrill from painting faces, have a low boredom threshold for looking at portraits, and have no desire to have portraits (by me) hanging on the wall. Wouldn't it be funny if this changed someday and I ended up passionate about painting portraits? The lovely thing about life is that it could happen. In my younger, quasi-abstract expressionist, pen-and-ink/woodcut/etching days, I would have scoffed if you had told me I'd one day be devoted to painting in oils, particularly landscapes. (No. 21, 8x8", on Raymar panel, Sept. 13, 2012).
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