Testimonials

I wanted to give my husband a 10th anniversary gift that would be memorable. Originally, I’d planned to take him to Greece, but because of the recession that was out! So, I decided to start looking for a portrait artist to paint something for him. However, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted painted. Originally, I thought about having a wedding portrait painted. Then, I fluttered between a portrait of just the two of us and a portrait of the two of us with our son. In the end, Mike decided for me. He painted a portrait of my husband and me featuring my wedding ring and me wearing a top representative of the top of my wedding dress. The portrait is more than wonderful and it’s exactly what I wanted!

When I first met with Mike, I was still unsure whether a portrait of us could be painted in a way that would blend with the other art in our home. We are big fans of color and texture, so most of what we buy tends to be Folk Art. Though I wanted a painted portrait of us, most of what I’d seen from other artists looked like it belonged in my grandmother’s house. The paintings were all very “Thomas Kincaid” and while I respect the fact that Thomas Kincaid sells trillions of paintings, I’d never hang his work or anything that resembles it on my walls. So, I began searching the internet for “undiscovered” artists.

I first saw Mike’s work on You Tube. He’d listed a video of himself painting a self-portrait. From the You Tube video, I went to his website and saw some of his work. Though, nothing popped out at me as being what I wanted, I made a mental note of him and continued looking for other artists. About two weeks later, I went to see a show featuring an artist with whom I am very familiar and from whom I’ve bought a few pieces. At the back of the studio was a painting of girl in a Renaissance costume and I couldn’t take my eyes off it because I couldn’t determine how I felt about it. So, after looking at it for almost 15 minutes and recognizing that it was by Mike, the You Tube artist that I’d seen weeks earlier, I decided to give Mike a call. Whether the painting was “good” had become irrelevant, it had grabbed my attention, so I figured that I needed to meet this artist.

After arriving at Mike’s studio for the initial consultation, I was still leery. He had tons of different examples of his paintings displayed on his walls. Some things were done very well and some were still works in progress. However, after talking with Mike, I began to believe that he could paint what I wanted, so I decided to give him a shot and I am very pleased that I did.

Mike Jones is a portrait painter because he has the ability to create likenesses on canvas. However, I think that Mike Jones is a FABULOUS portrait painter because of his ability to listen to what you, the commissioner, want to see and his willingness to persevere until he has captured what YOU see. 10 people could look at an apple and see it 10 different ways. Any person, with even the most limited artistic ability, could then take out a canvas and some art supplies and create a representation of that apple. However, the issue with painting a commissioned portrait is that the person commissioning the portrait doesn’t want to see the artist’s interpretation of the apple, he wants to see his interpretation of the apple. If an artist can’t listen and/or if an artist isn’t willing to try until he recreates what his commissioner sees, then he’s no good at painting commissioned portraits. I didn’t want Mike Jones’ interpretation of my husband’s eyes hanging on my wall. I wanted a representation of my husband’s eyes, nose, mouth, etc. as I see them and as I have seen them for the last decade- and Mike gave me that. For this, I am grateful and very pleased.

NS-S