I was lucky enough to have an art teacher in high school who was a portrait painter. She arranged for students to sit for portraits on a regular basis. Doing portraits became a natural thing to do, a way to pass time, a way to develop and maintain hand-eye coordination.

Faces come in infinite varieties. They are all the same, yet they are so very different, and the differences can be in a minute fraction of an inch.

The most challenging way to do a portrait is to work with a live model. Few people are willing to sit still long enough for the artist to capture a likeness because minor movements of the head, along with fleeting changes of expression, can throw proportions way out of control. The use of photographs, usually taken by the artist, alleviates the tediousness of the long sitting.

The art of portraiture is more than simply creating a likeness of a person. Portrait artists strive to capture the unique personality of their subject, to reveal the depth of individual character. As in all painting, portrait painting involves emphasizing some elements and ignoring others. In this sense, it is abstract - abstracting those features that are most characteristic of the person.

Why do I like doing portraits? I think it may be that as a reserved person, this is my way of reaching out to touch people. Drawing is, in fact, like touching. It is a way of memorizing the contours of a face.