Richard began painting people from the beginning. For many of the early years, Richard painted at Ramon

An old man sitting against a wall with a cigar in his mouth, hat, suit and glass of red wine.
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Kelley’s studio where they would get a weekly model and paint from life. This laid the foundation of Richard’s figure work and where he learned to paint people. Richard paints people in both oil and pastel, but in recent years mainly oil.

He continues to paint the figure today but not as many nudes. He has collectors that focus primarily on his nudes which he has painted mainly using pastel. However, these days Richard is focusing on the figure in the situations and experiences. He portrays kids playing in the ocean and on the beaches. He paints portraits incorporating old characters as interesting subject matter.

“I love the challenge of painting people. As with all my paintings I am trying to capture the moment in the place or in this case the moment of the person, if an individual portrait. As I would watch kids approach the sea they almost all approach it the same way arms outstretched ready to embrace the sea’s energy.”

“I don’t want to capture a person photographically but more emotionally and expressively, I do paint people representationally “enough” to require that proportion etc. be correct….people can really tell if a painting of a person isn’t quite right.”