army – M. Szal

I have finally completed my first of the Presidential Portrait series. After about six weeks of working on a painting, I begin to worry that I have over-done it and thus ruined the painting. I had a drawing teacher at Pratt who used to tell us to stop at 96% and leave a touch for the viewer to fill in with their imagination. If someone works a piece of art even past the threshold of 101%, it destroys that remarkable quality.

detail of the cherries – hands and an object are a common way to add a personal vibe to a portrait

It is so nice to have so many resources to study to try to learn about a person who you are trying to paint in a way that captures more than just a physical description of the person. It is essential to capture the “essence” of a person, and I thought the story of young Washington admitting he cropped down the cherry tree to his father would be interesting. The cherries also have a sexual reference that speaks to our nation’s birth in blood and war through Washington’s deeds.

Since Washington was the father of the American Army, I have decided to speak with an Army recruiter about enlisting in the “regular army”. My uncle, John Szal, was a captain in the Marine Corps. and he asks me not to join the Marines. I thought joining the Army would be a perfect solution as a loophole to get around this. I can enlist at a higher rank with ASE tests and hopefully work on vehicles and/or helicopters. However, several things might disqualify me or limit my options in the military from my past. Also, in the Army, you do not get to pick what you do and are obliged to follow your orders, so I could do graphic design again or become a combat medic. It is impossible to say, yet I will keep the blog updated with what they say and the progress of my next portrait (John Adams). I am not a violent person and would prefer not to have to hurt anyone, yet I am not a conscientious objector by any means.

Capitaland has a policy of letting people leave for military service. Yet, I do not expect them to have a job waiting for me in four years, so I will be leaving Capitaland. I will miss my new manager, Brian Hansbury, and his dog Bandit (my favorite part of Capitaland). I will no longer be around to receive any commission from someone purchasing a car, so no more pressure on anyone to buy a vehicle to help me.