Portrait Gallery

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When I was little, my mother kept a little framed print of The Laughing Cavalier by Franz Hals way up on top of a tall bureau. My father hated it so much that it was never hung on a wall. Being too small to reach it myself, the only way I could see it, on the rare occasions I did, was by asking for my mother to take it down and let me look at it through the dusty glass. While some kids might pretend to be superheroes, I became The Laughing Cavalier. For years, every time I sat for a school portrait or a team photo I adopted the subject’s distinctive smirk, much to the chagrin of the school photographer who pleaded with me, time and again, to smile like all the normal kids.

Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with portraits. A painted likeness exists both in and out of time. It is simultaneously a frozen moment (like a snapshot) and a continually developing object that, after being created slowly over time, continues to age, discolor, crack, undergo restoration, and deteriorate some more long before us and long after we are gone. Additionally, the portrait is both a record a person’s presences and a document of the artist’s effort in moving paint across a surface in order to produce it.

Having grown up pretending to be a portrait, it was only natural that I would eventually become one. That’s why I painted my first self-portrait, and I’ve made dozens since then. Through my portraits, I could become different characters. In fact, I could control reality itself. Eventually, other people wanted me to make them into portraits. They asked to become imaginary characters or to be placed in other worlds. 

My portraits have entered the collections of the Virginia Historical Society, the Poe House and Museum of Baltimore, the Town of Blackstone, and many others. 

I paint portraits in a variety of sizes from miniature to larger than life. Contact me to commission your own. 

Size               Price 

5” x 3”            $90

7” x 5”            $210

10” x 8”          $480

12” x 12”        $864

14” x 11”        $924

20” x 16”        $1,920

24” x 18”        $2,592

24” x 24”        $3,456

36” x 24”        $5,184

48” x 24”        $6,912

40” x 30”        $7,200

48” x 36”        $10,368

I want your portrait be unique and individualized, so I want to know something about you or the person you would like me to paint. Since you aren't exactly like anyone else, let's work together to make sure that your portrait doesn't look like everyone else's. Once we've discussed some ideas, I can make a few sketches and take some photos of the subject. Sometimes I work from photos provided by the client, but I prefer to work from my own.  Since I don't want to make a boring painting any more than you want one hanging up in your home, I make more sketches to make sure the composition is  dynamic and interesting before I even start painting.

A third of the price is due at the project's initiation. A third is due halfway through the project, and the final third is due upon delivery. Throughout the process, I send the client photos of the progress.

From time to time I paint portraits of literary or historical figures like Poe, Lovecraft, or Karloff. You can find some of these for sale here.