My Portraits

This is my first blog post on my new website. I am now 78 years old. I think I still have my sense of humor. I can still do portraits but I am a little more picky. I think as an older artist, I should get a tax break for each one I do since I don't have as many portraits left in me.

Painting a portrait is satisfying but hard and once I have done it, approximately a month of my remaining productive time is gone.

I still love doing portraits. I painted many from life. It is a great lesson to look into another's eyes for an hour or two with only the idea of really seeing them. People make themselves available and look back at you honestly after a while. Sometimes a subject would pose and affect a look they thought they wanted to have in the portrait. This only obscured what I needed to see. It is the same in photography. A good photographer will wait to see the real person.

When I saw the real person, I knew what I wanted and needed to paint. What I found after hundreds and hundreds of portraits was that everyone is beautiful. Every single person is beautiful.

Graham 08/28/2025