It's all about the eyes, they reveal so much about the one I paint than just the ability to see the world around us.  Art began for me at age 5, although i made mostly C+ grades for my work in university, so I quit that major and pursued a Social Work degree followed by a Masters degree in Counselling Psych. Anyways - I didn't need a silly degree to pursue my love for portrait art, and would draw friends and strangers any chance I got. I had lots of opportunity to practice my portrait sketching in Saint Marc, Haiti in 2010 (just after the earthquake), and in Pemba, Mozambique in 2011, drawing primarily Creole/Portuguese speaking children as they gathered around me in hot sweaty crowds. I couldn't feel more honored. When I returned home to Canada, I decided to try my hand at sketching homeless people at shelters around town, and even got on the news for doing this. Eventually I got a crazy idea to collab with an owner of an art print shop in the mall. I began painting people and animals on enormous canvases in front of his store, met dozens of contacts, sold many pieces, and completed several commissions. It was all about following my passion...or as Frederick Buechner once said, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet."