Christmas Portrait time; Mom and daughter portrait in progress

Hi! I’ve been posting a fair number of landscape paintings lately, but I’m still an American portrait artist.

Painting in progress

american portrait artist mom child

I’m in the mid-phase of this large mom and daughter portrait painting. The expressions are worked out, and now comes the finesse, the paint marks, the decisions about how to support the relationship with the colors and marks, and interest between smooth gradations and bold marks, and little details that will make the painting special.

This family is my Monday modeling family. I have been wanting to try my hand at a larger portrait than I’d painted before. This one is 22″ x 30″. I think it will turn out quite nicely!

Portraits as gifts

Call soon if you are interested in a portrait to give your spouse as a Christmas gift.

How to choose an artist? What I want most is for you to have artwork that you love. So choose an artist whose paintings make your heart sing. If that’s me, that is wonderful!

When to call? If you’re thinking about commissioning a portrait by an American Portrait Artist as a Christmas gift, it’s time to contact an artist! Depending on how quickly the artist paints, and how many commissions they’re working on, they may need many months.

I generally need about a month for a small to mid-size painting, and a couple months for larger paintings. That gives time to live with design ideas for a little while before the best one becomes apparent, painting, and drying and delivery / shipping time. In an “emergency” I have delivered in a small painting in a week (that was actually pretty fun!), but in general more time is necessary.

Are you a local person interested in a “portrait sketch”?

I’ve been thinking about doing some quicker portrait sketches. This would be for folks that want a portrait but either enjoy a loose sketch, or don’t have the budget for a fully rendered portrait. It would involve sitting in my studio for about two hours, and the price… I haven’t settled on yet. Call or email if you’d like more info.

My goal is to bring joy to the world through art.

A Well Pressed Shirt, portrait of working man

portrait painting, by Rasche
I am feeling very inspired to paint more of this sort of portrait – of people doing their thing. If you’re a local business owner, and it would be OK for me to come out and take pictures (or paint on site) of you or your staff cooking, tending the till, feeding cows, constructing a house… anything like that… call or send me an email.  

(This portrait painting is almost done with it’s museum tour!)

portrait artist paints Final painting (NFS)

Space ● SOLD

Here is the final image of  “Light through the Window”, 16×20, oil.

This was my attempt to show my son as I see him so often, reading his favorite book (Calvin and Hobbes) and hanging out next to our puppy. The light was shining in through the window…

Learn more about portraits here.