AUBURN - After searching years for success, struggling portrait artist Bradley Cole now has to face another problem -- he finally found it.

Like someone who has won the lottery, Cole, who until recently was working at the movie complex at the Fingerlakes Mall, is still adjusting to the concept of doing what he always wanted to do, full time.

“It can be a little frustrating. Before, it was just a hobby, something I'd do as a release and I could take my time with it,” said the artist, taking his hand up from the table to gesture, but putting it back down. “Now it's a job. I do it all the time.”

“It's about integrity,” he explained. “But I'm surprised by the quality I've put out, and how quickly I've been able to do it.”

“There isn't a morning I don't wake up thankful it's happened,” he asserts.

A favorite of viewers of his work is of an elderly man sitting at a counter. Looking at it amongst other surprisingly good portrayals, it is gone back to for a second, longer pause. It is quite a distance from the first images put on a pad.

“I was a kid in second grade at Casey Park,” Cole said. “They were just little cartoons. My parents encouraged me.” When he was 16, he submitted a sampling to Cal-Arts, a school located in California specializing in cartoon art, only to be turned down.

“They're the top dogs. I gave up cartoons to do this realistic stuff,” Cole said.

He later moved to Boston, hoping to start his career there, working as a cook at a bar while waiting for an opportunity in graphics.

“It dried up. A lot of people there that were into it were out of work. I'd come home at night (from the bar) and paint,” he said.

After graduating from Oswego State University in 2005, Cole, six months later stumbled onto what he was looking for all along, in his hometown of Auburn. Sister Michelle, who works at Yesteryear's Coffee House and Cafe mentioned Bradley was an artist. Her employer told her to tell him to come down and draw.

“They told me to come down on a Friday night and see if people would like a picture done,” Cole said.

The 25- year-old artist never looked back. In addition to doing in-person portraits daily at the cafe from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., he has done wall paintings in homes, and portraits: both from pictures and impressions.

Influenced greatly by Norman Rockwell as he was growing up, Cole frames ideas around people that he meets.

“I'll see someone and say: That person would make a good Moses,” he said. “You can convey a lot of emotion with the characters you choose.”

However, he finds that particular form of inspiration limiting. “There's only so many faces and so many body parts.”

Often, clients will supply Cole with photographs of loved ones, sometimes deceased, for his portrayal.

“People give me some history of the person that's passed on. It's of sentimental value and I take that into consideration. It can be depressing,” he said, quickly adding: “But I'm very fortunate to be able to do this on a daily basis.”

Painting for a living, while pleasurable, can be challenging for Cole as well.

“People have come up and said, ‘Can you make me a little thinner, take a few wrinkles away?' or, ‘My mother is much more beautiful.' Then it's back to the drawing board,” Cole said. “But in the end, people are pretty satisfied, and I won't accept their money if they don't like it.”

Cole, who does not think he will reach his potential until he's “old and gray,” would like to ultimately obtain a job with a portrait studio and does not rule out relocating to a metropolitan area. The idea of becoming famous does not interest him - the joy is in capturing the essence of the subject.

“It's in the smile. A smile makes their eyes smile. It's the whole package. It's taking a step back and seeing it.”