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[Marvin Mattelson]

I certainly appreciate the "please the client" dilemma. I find what works for me is getting a good sense of what the client wants. This is a knack I've cultivated during my previous career in illustration. As a result I was required to make corrections quite infrequently, a rarity indeed.

As a portrait artist I'm very reluctant to show all my photos to the client. I am much better qualified to make the best choices. After all isn't this why the hired me? Therefore I make the best, in my opinion, choices based on my sense of what the client wants and show them a restricted selection of photos. I will also show photoshoped composites because most people need to see what things look like.

If the client would ever demand to see all the photos (it's never happened), or wants a photo that I think is not good, I will explain that this is a painting, not a snapshot, and some things just will not fly in a painted portrait.

If we're at an impasse I will suggest perhaps an additional photo shoot and if push came to shove I might even bail out. For me to work on a losing proposition for six weeks would be like being in ****.

This is all hypothetical, as I said, I have found my clients to be very accommodating to my quest for perfection and in the end a great painting makes everyone, artist and client, happy.