By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Washington Grade School students in Ellis celebrated President's Day with a special guest on Monday.
Michael Jilg, a Hays artist, painted an 8-foot-by-8-foot portrait of President Washington 50 years ago for the country's bicentennial celebration.
After spending some time outside in front of the school, facing Washington Street in Ellis, the portrait was eventually moved inside the school and now hangs in one of its main hallways.
"My vision of art is to show people something they've never seen before," he said. "And if they have seen it before, to show it to them in a way that is unusual."
Jilg, who painted the portrait based on Gilbert Stuart's famous portrait of the president, said he never anticipated the painting would last this long.
He said that when he stepped into the school on Monday, it was the first time he had seen the portrait in 50 years.
Jilg, who was living and working in Ellis on Washington Street at the time, scavenged sheets of masonite and old wood from the local lumberyard to use as canvas and a frame.
He used a 1-foot-by-1-foot grid system to size the Gilbert painting up to the larger school portrait.
He explained to the students that there were no cell phones or cameras in 1776. If you wanted a picture of George Washington, and everyone wanted one, you had to have a painting made.
Gilbert Stuart never fully finished his official portrait of George Washington. He would paint a little and then take time off to paint copies that he could sell on the side to make money, Jilg said.
The original portrait is in Washington, D.C., but Stuart copies still exist today.
The children asked Jilg what it was like before cell phones.
"It was really good," he said.
Jilg said at the time he painted his portrait, he just wanted an excuse to paint something big. He used enamel house paint samples.
"It was the bicentennial, and everyone was excited about the country being 200 years old," he said.
He had to paint the image in two panels, so he could get the painting out of his house.
Jig took time to answer the children's questions after a short presentation on the portrait.
Jilg painted the Washington portrait when he was 30, but he told the students he had started painting at 18.
His school had no art program when he was a child, but he said he constantly doodled when he should have been paying attention.
"It's taken the rest of my life to learn what I should have when I was your age," he said.
He said he was a "gear head" in high school. He liked fixing cars and working with his hands.
It wasn't until he went to college that he began to pursue art seriously.
"I enjoy every moment I'm making art," Jilg said. "It doesn't matter what it is."