One of my favorite songs as a child was an aria from a sad opera called Pagliacci. The aria is still one of the most empassioned laments I have ever heard, but the gist of it was, “you’re a clown. Laugh, people want to hear you laugh. Your heart is broken? use that heartbreak to…

Every now and then someone asks the impossible. Can you paint me a picture from this old black and white photo? Most of the time, there is plenty of resolution in those old photos, so it isn’t too hard to do. but this is what I had to work with: I agonized over this one,…

I cannot remember how I got to know this lovely Finnish lady. We were both learning Italian, and we visited on the internet. Then when Facebook became popular, I found her there too and we played scrabble in Italian together, she was one of the few patient enough to do so with me because neither…

People that are into cars are always seeing cars that they like, people who are into dogs are always running into fun dogs. Well, what I love are faces, and when I saw this woman for the first time, I knew I had to paint her. She speaks very little English, being a native of…