Patsy generally paints only from her own photographic references, although pet portraits are occasionally done on request from candid photos supplied by the client. She finds that the porcess of getting to know the subject through her own photography breathes "life" into her art. While her style is clearly a realistic, prepresentational one (for which she was juried into The International Guild of Realism in 2008), her aim in each painting is to portray her subject's particular sense of self. The first reaction of her portrait clients is never "it looks just like [the subjec,t" but "you've really captured [the subject's] essence!"
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