Self Portrait As A German Ace in 1918
oil on linen, 14.75" x 24"

• Best in Show winner in the 2011 Military Aviation Museum's Aviation History Through Art Juried Exhibition

(collection of the artist)

"This piece is a little bit of a departure from my usual fare. My wife and I were planning to go out one morning to take reference shots for an upcoming painting. I decided that perhaps I should maximize my time in front of the camera and see if I could get reference shots for multiple pieces. I began to think of how fun it would be to do a painting of myself in full period gear. It only made sense - most artists create self portraits during their careers, and painting myself in the same type of uniform that many of my subjects would have worn seemed quite appropriate.

This was not simply just a case of me painting directly from a photo. To give an even better sense of time and place, I pulled out a good shot that I had of a DVII taken from waist level. I did some quick number crunching and figured out approximately how far from the airplane I was when I took the photo, how far in front of the aircraft the figure needed to be (in theory) to fit proportionally and finally, how far I needed to be from the camera to get the proper reference shot. "

- Russell Smith