[Mike McCarty]

I am of the opinion that one could paint a portrait a month for the rest of their life in nothing but the head and shoulder pose and still not complete all the possibilities.

One of my many mistakes as I began to focus on portraits was to try and paint the sweeping cinematic compositions like some of the masters above. I wish I had started from from the center and worked my way out, instead of the other way around. It seems that the more challenged the artist , the more they are apt to take on the impossible. It seems counter intuitive that it would be that way.

Here are a couple of head and shoulder paintings by Lord Frederick Leighton. These compositions, of the same girl it would seem, are anything but typical. And then the last by Wm. Bouguereau. What in the world can be said about this painting?