CityView Magazine

26 | July/August 2018 To Tonape's delight, Laura Bush served as the live model for the lesson. "She was so kind to volunteer," he said. "She was so gracious and graceful; the perfect specimen of a lady." Tonape worked with the former president that morning, drawing Laura Bush's likeness on canvas while dis- cussing portraiture techniques, such as the application of color and tone on the human face. At lunch, the lesson stopped for a while. Two days before the trip, Tonape had been sent an elaborate list of 30-plus menu choices for his lunch. Overwhelmed, Tonape ordered something familiar – a chicken curry sandwich – which he ate while talking with the Bushes and Woodson, who joined them for lunch. "We talked about many things, including the president's many trips to India," Tonape said. "He mentioned the former prime minister Manmo- han Singh like they were buddies and revealed he had once painted a picture of him from one of his own photos." Tonape said he enjoyed talking and bantering with the president through- out the day. "He was supremely funny," Tonape said. "I found him to be highly intel- ligent and very funny. He picked on me a lot and the ambience between us was fun. He was also very astute and knowledgeable as a student of art, noticing the smallest things I would do while painting. At one point, when his wife sneezed and he was gone a few seconds to get her a Kleenex, I made a very subtle color change to the lips in the portrait. Upon his return, he immediately commented that he liked what I had done to the lips. His level of attentiveness reminded me of that of a postgraduate student." Aer a few more hours of work in the aernoon, the lesson and the Tonape, chair of the art department at Methodist University, is an award-winning artist, drawing and painting in both figurative and non-representational modes. His work has been exhibited in the United States, Canada and his native country of India. Photos by Mat thew Wonderly

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