Materpiece Portraits
Fairmont, WV Painted Portraits
If you are searching for a West Virginia portrait artist who creates truly distinctive painted portraits, you are in the right place. I am Tim Ray, a professional portrait artist serving individuals, families, and seniors throughout West Virginia, specializing in a signature process that combines traditional portrait photography, refined digital artistry, and hand-applied acrylic paint.
Each painted portrait begins with a carefully crafted photographic foundation, captured with beautiful light and genuine expression. From there, the image is transformed through digital artistry and finished with real acrylic paint, creating a one-of-a-kind heirloom that blends modern technique with classic fine-art tradition. The result is not simply a photograph, but a timeless painted portrait with depth, texture, and presence.
Portrait Paintings by Tim & Stefanie Ray
The Masterpiece Finish
is the most exclusive offering at Tim Ray Photography and represents the closest modern equivalent to commissioning a true master oil painting. Due to the extraordinary level of craftsmanship and time required, only a very limited number of Masterpiece Portraits are created each year. For this reason, the Masterpiece finish is reserved exclusively for statement pieces sized 30 inches and larger.
With the Masterpiece finish, the portrait is rendered entirely as a painting. The process begins digitally using a specialized platform developed specifically for traditional fine-art painters. Every decision mirrors classical oil painting methods: the artist selects the brush type, determines the exact number of bristles, custom-mixes each paint color, and controls the angle, pressure, and paint load with precision, just as an Old World master would at the easel.
Once the painting is complete, the artwork is produced using archival-grade pigments that are infused directly into a premium archival canvas. This process creates exceptional depth, texture, and permanence, resulting in a portrait that is painterly in every sense, not photograph-based.