When I was a kid, I'd tell my friends to "scribble a line" and I would "make a face out of it." I can't remember a time when I wasn't drawing faces. Except, I stopped for a little while after college, when my babies came. No time, and I got tired of washing my paints off of the walls as my kids grew into curious, messy toddlers. When I later returned to teaching, I studied the tiny Hispanic faces of my students so intently, I sometimes forgot to listen to what they were saying. My love of faces was reawakened. However, watercolors and I don't get along. They're too splashy and unpredictable. I haven't the courage. I painted several clumsy watercolor portraits of my students. I needed a better fit, a different medium. Then I tried pastels, and I overworked them, as I had always done with watercolors. But, to my surprise the vibrant, transparent hues virtually popped off of the paper. By accident, I had discovered my perfect stylistic match called hyper-realism.