By JIM BUTLER

Eagle Staff Writer

Watching her grandfather draw the faces from the cover of Time magazine stuck with Ceci Luepnitz. Five decades later, the College Station artist is an award-winning portrait painter.

Luepnitz, 62, has three Best of Show ribbons from the Brazos Valley Art League juried art shows, and was commissioned to paint the Bichon Frisé (French for "curly lap dog") that won Best of Show at the Westminster Dog Show in New York's Madison Square Garden in 2001. The white ball of fluff's official name is Champion Special Times Just Right, but friends call him J.R.

The painting is actually a collage with several images of J.R. interspersed with a couple of images of his co-owners, Dorothy MacDonald and handler Scott Sommer of Houston.

Luepnitz's talent may be inherited.

"My grandfather loved to draw," said Leupnitz, whose maiden name was Mary Kinloch Bush. ("The Ceci comes from my brother, who couldn't say 'sister,'" Luepnitz said.)

"[My grandfather] would get Time magazine and draw the face on the cover. His drawing always looked just like it. I was always amazed."

Luepnitz attended Louise S. McGehee private girls school in New Orleans, and in the yearbook she wrote that she was going to be a portrait painter. Reaching that goal wasn't as simple as she thought.

Luepnitz enrolled at Tulane University in New Orleans, her hometown, to study art at its Newcomb College. "Everybody was doing abstracts, and I really wanted to do portraits. I got really frustrated and switched [my major] to art history."

Painting was put on a back burner for marriage and family.

Luepnitz moved to College Station in 1981 for her husband, Roy, a psychologist in private practice, to get a doctorate at Texas A&M University. But when daughter Noel came along, Luepnitz's painting experienced a renaissance.

"I had just turned 40, and Noel had just been born," Luepnitz said. "For some reason, I wanted to paint again."

Luepnitz began by taking lessons from local artist Johnnie Griffin, one of whose paintings hangs on the Luepnitz dining room wall.

"She did still lifes with white lace tablecloths," Luepnitz said. "I told her I wanted to paint people."

A friend gave Luepnitz some cassette tapes by John Howard Sanden, a New Yorker who was awarded the John Singer Sargent Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the American Society of Portrait Artists. Luepnitz had admired Sargent since seeing his work in art history classes.

"I was so inspired [by Sanden] that I called him and asked to attend a workshop. Artists were supposed to submit slides, but there was one spot left, so they let me in," Luepnitz said. "I've been back four or five times."

And Luepnitz started painting portraits, most with Noel as the subject. She also has painted her daughter Mary and son George. All of her children are now adults.

Other subjects included former Texas A&M University football coach R.C. Slocum ("He gave it to his mother," Luepnitz said) and Paul Bonarrigo, co-owner of Messina Hof Winery and Resort in Bryan.

Luepnitz, who charges $1,200 for a 16-by-20-inch painting, starts a commission by having a photographer take numerous pictures of her subject.

"We go through the photos together until we agree on the best one. Things I look for are the eyes and whether a smile is fake. I love the eyes."

Luepnitz then uses the chosen photo as the model for her painting.

"I paint, let it dry; paint, let it dry, until I'm satisfied," she said. "The process usually takes two or three months."

In addition to people, Luepnitz also paints pets and landscapes, and some of her work can be seen online at

www.ceciportraits.com.

• This was Jim Butler's last feature story for The Eagle before retiring Monday.