This is one of my first portraits painted at The Art School at Old Church, Demarest, NJ.
Jesse was a gentle and tall man. Maybe I got his arm too long, but it does remind me how impressive his body was. Oh the beard - here is where I learned that an accurate sketch can be more readily drawn if one has reference points and angles to work with. Here the beard helped me to get the head shape and position of the nose, chin, ear and eyes. Without the beard and mustache one must rely on the rounded features of the chin and cheeks where there are few reference edges to aid. I also got a lesson on negative space while painting this. Look at the grey triangle under his left arm - by getting the shape right I had help in setting the arm and left leg. A lot of time was spend on the hand - I know why some artists like to hide the hand under or behind some object!
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