"Never paint your wife or your mother." That's the advice former President George W. Bush gave to aspiring artists when a Sunday interview on CNN's "State of the Union" delved into to the 43rd president's creative hobby.
Bush said he was giving the advice after learning the hard way from two of his toughest family critics – his mother Barbara Bush and wife Laura Bush. The president told CNN's Candy Crowley about showing his mother a picture he painted of his father, President George H.W. Bush, for his book "41: A Portrait of My Father."
"I think it's nice but mother kind of, you know," Bush said with a laugh before offering the advice to other artists thinking about painting their moms and spouses.
Bush admitted to Crowley that he painted a portrait of his wife, which led to the question if Laura Bush liked it.
"She said," Bush began, and briefly paused before saying, "No."
"Neither did my daughter, so I just scraped it," Bush told Crowley, then immediately backtracked on his words.
"I kind of chunked it," Bush said with a laugh. "I may have saved it, although they probably think I destroyed it. Don't tell anybody."
Bush told CNN that when he put the family dogs on canvas he ended up painting something that Barbara Bush finally approved of.
"It was fun painting something for someone you care about," said Bush. "I painted a garden scene and some other things and she liked it and appreciates it."
Bush opened his first art exhibition "The Art of Leadership: A President's Personal Diplomacy," at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas this past spring and it will run through June 3,
according to Politico magazine.
"Bush's artistic potential was unleashed when he started drawing stick figures in an iPad app and sending 'love notes' to his daughters and wife,"
wrote Katie Zezima of the Washington Post when the exhibit opened in April. "He was partially inspired to start painting after reading Winston Churchill's essay 'Painting as a Pastime.' Painting, Bush said, occupies his mind."
The Post reported that Bush hired an art instructor to help him improve on his work.
"I said, 'there’s a Rembrandt trapped in this body, and it’s your job to unleash it,'" Bush jokingly told the artist, noted the Post.