My first paid commission was a group portrait of the family of one of my mother's piano students in 1982. I deliberatly aimed for primary colors in an impressionistic interpretation. I think I was paid about $400.00.

A year went by as I was working on "Susan Weiss and her Daughters", so the youngest began as a newborn and gradually became a toddler in the painting. Now all the girls are adults and there are grandchildren too.

It' kind of scary how the years have gone by and how many ways my painting style has evolved. This family kept me busy with other portrait projects over the years. One of the most interesting were three standing life-sized cut-out oil on birch plywood portraits of the three teen-aged girls in 1994. You never feel alone in an empty room with these standing portraits!