posted: November 13, 2007

Last week I did this painting for Entertainment Weekly Magazine's 50 greatest Icon list. Johnny Carson is number one and I was flattered to be offered to paint him. I take almost every job to paint an Iconic person, be it from movies and music or politics and sports. I don't know if I would ever again get the chance to paint Carson. I get asked often to paint iconic portraits. The hard part is to sift through the provided reference and find elements that all work to define the desired impression I'm trying to convey while still getting a likeness. This one was particularly tough. There are few images available. You would think there were more. I told a few of my students that I was working on a Johnny Carson portrait and was shocked to find out that he was not longer a household name. Could it possibly be true that his name sounds like Jack Parr does to me? It can't be true. Entertainment weekly will help remind America why he was so much a part of our lives.