Sunset, Monday, 5 January 2009

Washington, D.C. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20.

This was during my scouting trip for the Inauguration Day paintings – a sort of spooky-intense evening on the Mall, no one around, in freezing rain and sleet. I sketched the sunset, and took a sheaf of the day’s sketches back to my motel room in La Plata, Md., and painted this in the room that night. The subject was daunting, as was figuring out how to paint in oils without hurting the room (required a trip to the hardware store for a big dropcloth) – but it was a blast. I loved it, despite the somewhat modest carefulness of the product. And I ended my three-day reconnaissance completely devoted to the beauty, inner and outer, of the Lincoln Memorial.