My first painting was a portrait of my mother who recently passed. I have a large collection of photographs of my parents, both of whom are no longer with us. I found that a great way to preserve my mother’s memory was with an elegant oil portrait. One of my next portraits was of both my parents together, which now hangs over the mantel of my fireplace. They look down on me, and remind me everyday of the sacrifices they went through to get me where I am now. These paintings are so meaningful to me, I realized that they would probably mean a lot to others who want to preserve their most cherished memories of loved ones or events. With that idea in mind, MyRembrandt.com was born.

Q2.) If one is searching for an artist to do an oil painting, what are some of the qualities they should look for in deciding whom to go with?

Quality is the most important aspect of an oil portrait. You want an artist who can represent the emotion and character of the subject of an oil painting. Of course, you can pay thousands of dollars for an oil portrait as well, so you must keep the price tag of your portrait in mind. MyRembrandt.com has done its best to keep our prices low without compromising quality.

Q3.) Tell us about some of your favorite people that you've painted. Any celebrity or high profiled clients that you loved to paint?

We have done paintings of Lulu, who is famous for singing “To Sir With Love.” We have also painted the cover of a biography of Peggy Lipton, who is famous for the “Mod Squad.” We occasionally get customers who ask us to paint some strange things, like angel wings coming out of their back while they perch atop a skyscraper in Los Angeles. It’s orders like those that keep this business fun and exciting. You never know who will order next.

Q4.) Do you paint people in person or just from portraits? How different are both processes for you?

We paint exclusively from photographs. This allows us to reach customers who are all across the country. In addition, often times customers want portraits from special occasions like weddings, or photographs from their youth, or of loved ones who have since passed which cannot be recreated at an in person painting session. Also, painting a person as they sit in front of an artist can be tiring for the subject because they may need to remain motionless for hours on end. Painting from a photograph tends to be more convenient and more desirable for most customers.

Q5.) What is a typical oil painting process like? It must take a few days and a lot of meticulous work.

We have developed a technique that drastically reduces the time involved in the painting process; while at the same time improves the final likeness of the portrait to the customer submitted photograph. We take the photographs that our customers send to us and digitally print them onto canvas. Our artists then use this image as a guide when they paint the portrait. This ensures that all the colors are matched correctly and all the relative sizes of separate objects in the portrait match the photograph. It still takes a very talented artist to create a great portrait, but reduces the time it takes him or her to complete the portrait so our customers receive their portraits in a matter of weeks, not a matter of months.

Q6.) For our readers, what are your thoughts as to what makes an oil painting such a wonderful gift for the
holidays?

Oil portraits are wonderful gifts because they are very personal and hold so much sentimental value. Some gifts lose their luster after a few months or a few years. Oil portraits are one of the few items that can maintain their original importance and beauty, making their significance last generations.

Q7.) Finally, tell us about your other project - it seems to be more affordable for those who cannot purchase an oil painting.

The idea behind MyRembrandt.com is to allow our customers to preserve their most cherished memories through an oil portrait. However, oil portraits can be pricey because of the time and talent it takes to create them. In order to spread the ability preserve memories to all our potential customers we have started SDCal.com, which is a full color large format printing business. We have special printers that are able to print on a number of materials from high gloss photo paper to actual, artist quality canvas. What this allows us to do is accept photographs from our customers, enlarge them to essentially any size, the most common being 16 x 20 inches and 24 x 36 inches, and print the photographs onto canvas. The finished product is a portrait sized print, that still looks great over the fire place, still holds as much sentimental and aesthetic value, but at a fraction of the cost.