Everyone has a story. I have done portraits so long that it feels like cheating when doing something else. The occasional still life came with my admiration for Paul Cezanne.

As the portrait artist, the job is to give an illustrated synopsis considering time and possibly the space the subject is in. I’m drawn to compose a portrait independent of commissions or portfolio building. It could be a feature or what the person is doing at a particular time.

For Ivanka Trump, it was her neck. It was long. That’s it. So I grabbed my graphite pencils and went to work.

Before color, there was graphite. Note the year. This is when the portrait sketchbook of random famous people was born.