Fine art portraits are uniquely personal and they stir our emotions in a way that other pictures do not. Jim Ringley’s graphite drawings are impressive examples of this art form. A lifelong artist, he is accomplished in a range of styles and his work has been exhibited in galleries and museums from New York to Tokyo. He takes many hours to complete his meticulous drawings by hand, building multiple layers of subtle shading and delicate lines using as many as a dozen different types of pencils. The time spent is evident in the finished work. Ringley says, “To capture a subject’s personality and bring it to life on paper is amazing and fun, but it’s very important to me that the work be of lasting quality. When I’m making a portrait I consider future generations of the family, too, the children and grandchildren of the person I’m drawing. Someday the picture will be theirs and I want them to enjoy it as much in a hundred years as now.”