Category: Portraits 203 images (Page 1 of 7)

(153 Images; 6 pages). Amusingly enough, my first book commission (in 1996 or so?) required an eyepopping FIFTY, pen & ink portraits of North Carolina authors. As I recall, I was promised (which is a radically different thing from actually being paid, particularly when you’re dealing with small publishers) $1,000 for the job. I ended up being paid in furniture (which I didn’t mind…and all of which I still have). After that?…I found myself being commissioned by a lot of newspapers, book reviews (we still had them back then), and magazines for portraits….and I went from continuously writing about authors to continuously drawing them (which is easier and, frankly, pays better). These days, I do a lot of commissioned portraits…probably my favorite work. Many of these are memorial portraits (don’t ask me how such clients find me out.  I do know that I don’t find myself being commissioned for silly vanity-projects; presumably, those clients go elsewhere).  It’s an odd, but gratifying, sensation to enter so fully into one particular aspect of the life of a person I’ve usually never met (yes…I do work from photographs).

“A Simple Song” (portrait of Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock & Child)

“Adam’s Way/Faithful”

“Shady Grove” (Nellysford, VA)

“Bette Davis Eyes” (Portrait of Dawne Anderson. circa 1989)

“Old Friends” (Alison Brown; Hillsborough, NC)

“Dans Le Nord Pinus” (Arles; France)

“Sometimes a Shining Moment”

Herve Mommeja-Marin, 2013

“Ancora Bellissima, Come Sempre”

“Huckleberry Friends” (portrait of Nancy Boutelier & Her Father)

Edna St. Vincent Millay

MFK Fisher (Poet of the Appetites)

“Other Voices, Other Rooms” (Eagle Rock Farm, Wake County, NC)

“Rain” (Patti Griffith; for “Mille Besos”)

“These Three”

“In These Times”

“Close From the Start” (Ashley Rose Terry)

“The Reed Daughters”

“For Leslie” (Portrait of Rafi Tal)

William Faulkner (“The Dixie Special Arrives in Hollywood, with Baggage”)

“Rich In Love” (Portrait of Jaki Shelton Green)

“A Fisher King” (Herve Mommeja-Marin; Barcelona, 2010)

First Loves (for my Father; Greeneville, TN. 1954)

“The Harp Weaver” (a portrait of my longtime friend, Newby Day, & her youngest grandson)

“The Wild Geese”

“Happy All the Time” (portrait of Tobias Robert Evans and Father William Sirr; Glasshampton Monastery, Worcestshire. 1930/2023)

Portrait de Claire Briggant

“Build Me a Boat” (Portrait of Dale Reed and Daughter)

“What’ll I Do?” (Portrait of Martini Emmart- Niedbalski, for Bob Niedbalski. July 2013)

Tous Les Matins Du Monde (Portrait of Danielle, Anne, Max, Arwen,et Julie Mommeja-Marin. Christmas Morning, 2009. Tours)