Intro

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

I have sketched all my life, but took another path when choosing a profession. Once my children were grown, I had the leisure to focus on art again; in order to learn to work with oils, I took a landscape painting class with a local artist who teaches at the Pennsylvania Academy and whose work I greatly admire. I live in a beautiful area and painted local scenes for several years, and then returned to portraits, my first love, with my newfound training in color. My first oil portrait was painted in 1995, and my first commission in 1996. Since that time I have retired from my full-time job and can spend almost as much time as I like on painting, although involvement with environmental and planning groups has sometimes made scheduling difficult. I also was the founding chair of a gallery/art center which has been the keystone of downtown revitalization in a nearby city, and am still involved with that organization. Most of my portrait commissions are through word of mouth.

Portraits are somewhat an oddity in this area, so I've kept my prices relatively low to build a body of work and a clientele. Several high-profile paintings have garnered me a great deal of publicity, so that has helped spread the word. This Forum seems to have considerable talent and expertise available, and I've enjoyed reading the posts. I had visited numerous times but only joined this month. Congratulations on a wonderful resource!

I have tried to attach a file of a recent portrait of my son at the age of about ten or eleven, from several old photos. The title is "Jeremy Dreaming." It is one of my favorites.

[Karin Wells]

Welcome. I am pleased to see you and your wonderful work on this forum!

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Thanks, Karin, for the warm welcome. I've been following you and your work for awhile and I admire it tremendously. Nice to be here.