This was commissioned by Seymour Johnson Airforce Base to hang in their newly renovated Officer's Club. This is the only base in the United States named after a naval officer (Seymour Johnson), and they wanted to commemorate that with a portrait. This painting was very challenging and went through several stages before its finished state. Click here to see the painting in an earlier phase.

When I first began this project, I began searching for anything I could find on Seymour Johnson- background information and photographs. The group that I was working with at the Seymour Johnson Airforce Base was only able to find one photograph in which I could work from, and my own searches didn't yield any better results. The only photograph anyone had was his black and white yearbook photo. Since I was going to have to invent the color in this painting, I took some pictures of my husband to use as a guide for that. I also had pictures of other men wearing the correct uniform, photographs of planes to paint by, and the curtains in the picture came from an online catalogue.