According to my mentor, Steven Assael:

“When you enjoy painting you are more of a hobbyist, but when you are serious you have to embrace all the terror, frustration, anxieties; it is horrible.”

I travel to study with Steven in his Manhattan studio some three to five times a year. Watching him paint evokes both inspiration and demoralization. I return to my Atlanta studio with a renewed sense of why I paint and a feeling of deep humility.

This is one of two studies I painted of the model Jasmine, here under a primary green light with a secondary light that was predominantly cool. How subtly the tones of the lights, shadows and half tones interacted became a wonderful exercise in studying the way nature arranges her palette.