The response has been overwhelming. It will now join my other work in an now-expanded selection of fantasy, sci-fi, portraits, and landscape studies.

This is a perfect complement to the book cover work I've done for twenty five years. As I refined the look of my figures on cover paintings over time, I wanted to bring certain elements of those figures to my current portrait work. In the commercial world I create larger than life characters - monumental, attractive, physically perfect - combined with a realism accessible to the viewer. These are some of the qualities I bring to my private commissions. To paint what is exactly there is less of a challenge than to capture the essence of the person, while adjusting little flaws, which we all have. I am naturally attracted to the complexity of the human figure and face, so I focus initially on the most attractive feature of someone's face and
then let the painting evolve. I also pay special attention to possibly the most expressive part of a human - the complex mechanism of the hands. To place them properly in a painting (when they are included in a portrait) with a captivating gesture or a simple presence, can often make a portrait more than just a face.

I'm also exploring small landscape studies with the figure. There are many skilled landscape painters. To set myself apart, I include a figure or figures in the natural setting so the viewer "experiences" the scale, the sensation, even the scent. The figure gives the viewer a sense of being in the painting, rather than looking at it from outside. The idea is loosely based on the fairies or superhuman beings in Lithuanian folklore. There are also human-like beings; female, blue eyed, extraordinarily beautiful, with long, fair hair called deives or laumes that occur only in Lithuanian and Celtic folklore. I'm planning a series of larger canvases in the future with these characters based on the studies I mentioned earlier.

For my Lithuanian friends the OLD CASTLE OF TRAKAI is available as a limited edition giclee print in the products section of the site.

Thank you for your interest. I hope you enjoy these images and return often.

Romas