Frank Pierce painted his first oil portraits in 1974 and still finds the challenge of portraiture to be exciting. Pierce enjoys painting portraits of a variety of people in all stages of life, but favors older subjects in particular. He is drawn to the character and experience in their faces. Children are also favorites because of their freshness and energy. “The challenge of painting a portrait is capturing the essence of the subject not just creating a likeness," he says. Frequent experimenting with techniques to capture the true transparency and luminescence of skin has led him “to discover something new every time I pick up a brush!"