customer choice not mine, what to do

[Carol Norton]

Pat, I am not sure whether or not you shared all your photos from your shoot or only the ones that YOU know would make effective paintings. Control what you can control. If you shared everything you shot, then, that is not a good idea. I often live by the saying that "If you don't want to hear the answer to a question, then don't ask the question." In other words, give your clients ONLY the photos that you know will make excellent paintings. They don't have the experience nor expertise that you have, so they see things in photos that they like but won't work in a painting.

Hope this helps. I speak from a 30 year experience as a teacher of children and frankly, there isn't a difference between how we present ourselves to adults and how things appear to those who don't have the knowledge we have.

[Patricia Joyce]

Portraiture is not something they are familiar with, so I am showing them examples and they are beginning to enjoy this. The parents are very open to trusting my vision. I did only show them about four poses that I knew I could paint (I look over 200 pictures!). In the end I think they will be fun to work with and I believe they will even allow me to have each child sit for me in my studio, after school lets out, so that I can do a color study in the same light as the pictures were taken in - I'm very excited about this.