I found ways to seal off the powdery surface of pastel so that gold leaf can adhere to it. Similarly, I found ways to roughen the texture of the gold leaf so pastel can be applied over it.

For a true work of creativity, you must reach beyond yourself to bring correct draftsmanship together with strong composition and lifelike colors.

If you look closely at any face, you'll start to see that different areas of the flesh tones are tinged with four other colors - red, green, purple and yellow.

No matter what the results, the act of searching will always enrich my work.

My studio is arranged so that I have a comfortable seating area for meeting with clients, an office area beyond that and a painting area, which includes room for art students to sit and watch as I work.

We can be creative and generate new breakthroughs, if we're willing to work with ideas from the pool of history - both distant and more recent - despite the potential for our experiments to fail.

The act of trying keeps me excited, looking, asking questions and learning.