Blake Gopnik trashes official portraits in Washington Post article

[Thomas Nash]

This will give you some idea of what the painting looks like.

[Thomas Nash]

This gives you some reference point for the scale of things. My wife took this picture from down in front of the Capitol while I painted the colors of the Mall. Most people don't see the bird net from a distance, but it is a big distraction when you are right behind it trying to look out at the Mall.

[Thomas Nash]

My wife snapped this wide angled picture when I was in the very early stages of trying to get familiar with the Mall and capture it's colors. In the three days I spent there I found I liked it better when the sun was shining more clearly. I was already pretty sure I wanted to paint the column on the right side of the painting but it didn't line up the way I needed, in order to see both it and the view of the Washington Monument at the angle I wanted.

I sometimes keep my brushes behind the painting where you might otherwise store another canvas. I have a box for wet canvases. You can see the brush tops sticking up. It's divided into three parts so that the brushes don't all run together if they have wet paint on them. The middle is not as deep so I can put short brushes there and they don't fall down. I wasn't using any real short handled brushes at this early stage. The canvas is toned grey. I sometimes work on toned, sometimes on white. I used a bit of charcoal to rough it in. There's not much to see of the painting, just thought some people might find the set up interesting.

[Thomas Nash]

One of my biggest challenges was that the positions of the various elements did not cooperate to make the painting I envisioned in my head. The Washington Monument for one thing, is a very tall and insistent structure that would've been too much of a distraction had I not "worked with it a bit". Have you ever painted someone who owned a really large dog and tried to find a way to not have it hog the picture?

The pattern of the railing didn't line up in an interesting way and the height of the top bar and the way it would intersect the view down below was unfortunate. I could write a book on the artifice and liberties employed to make the painting that the W.P. critic was certain was just a copy of a photo.

Here I'm just sketching and figuring, trying to find a way to make my idea work out. The easel is one of those light weight aluminum ones with the telescoping legs.

[Thomas Nash]

I will have to scan some other things to show you more. There is a pattern that runs through the painting that echoes a diagram the Speaker used to illustrate a point in a paper he wrote about the future. I will share that with you when I can.

[Michele Rushworth]

What a gorgeous portrait!

I love how you combined outdoor light with natural looking color and light on the figure -- very hard to do. I see what you mean about how you had to position him facing the Mall to get the light the way you wanted on his figure, then put him in a place where the light was really only coming from behind. I never would have noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out.

I also like how you lined up the pattern of the railing with the center line of the Mall. Beautifully designed.

Too bad they wouldn't reposition the Washington Monument for you, or put a smaller one in its place for a day or so....!

By the way, are you always able to do at least one color study from life with the model?

[Thomas Nash]

At least one session painting their head from life is pretty much the minimum. I always try for as much time with the subject as I can get.

Some paintings require more live sittings than others. Many official portraits like this one are not commissioned until the subject leaves office. Had he still been the House Speaker I don't think I could've gotten the several sittings that I did.

Even with the sittings (standings) I spent more time composing the picture and working out the perspective and other aspects than I did painting the head and hands.

There is always a lot the artist can do "from life" which does not require the subject to be there. I paint backgrounds, clothes (on manikins) and lots of elements without the subject being present. It's been done that way for centuries.
An aspect of realistic painting that is not often discussed is just how much is actually made up. The more one knows about light and shade, color and form, the more they know what they "can get away with" and still have it ring true as an illusion that is feasible.

I try to get my set up as close to what I want the painting to look like as possible. Working from your imagination is as tricky as trying to use photographs. It's always easier to have the real thing in front of you. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. You might notice the yellow/orange cloth hanging to Newt's left. That was to reflect some warm light back towards him to help me envision what might happen with the sun bouncing off the Capitol. It's not real evident in the reproduction posted. It affected the shadow on his collar and the back of his hand that is raised but the rest is more subtle.

I try to understand what the light is doing in every painting situation Then I can pick and choose what I want to use.

[Kimber Scott]

traditionalism in art and proclaimed themselves the "avant garde." They, however, have lost claim to the title as the avant garde can no longer be avant garde if everybody is doing it. It is the traditionalist who has become the "new avant garde." It is the traditionalist who must rage against the machine. Vive la difference!

Let Gopnik go play with Hockney and watch them fade into history never to be seen, or heard from, again - except maybe as a "See how ridiculous things got... the emperor had no clothes" footnote in a future art history class.