“I’ve been sketching everything in sight since I was old enough to hold a pencil, but the thing I wanted to sketch the most has always been people. When bored in school I would invariably wind up sketching the teacher.
‘Betsy! What are you doing? Bring that up here!’ she would snap, and I would meekly walk to the front of the class and hand over the suspect paper. But upon seeing it, she would change her tone and say, ‘Oh! May I keep that?’ And so I figured that I had a future as an artist.
I’ve always enjoyed and been fascinated by people. As a television news reporter, I loved interviewing an endless variety of subjects to learn not only the newsworthy thing that they were doing, but also what motivated them to do it. Human character is a source of endless interest to me – it’s what makes the world go around. I still interview and observe people to discover and uncover the character within. But instead of putting them on video, I now portray my subjects in oils on canvas, producing not fleeting moments, but keepsakes that capture what I like to think is the essential spirit of the person.
It amazes me how the tilt of a brow, or the curl of a lip or a finger tip sends a message, alters the demeanor, hints at the thoughts and soul of the person inside. I look for the natural and characteristic gesture, the revealing glance or turn. Then I carefully select a setting and light that magnify the subject’s personality, be it moody, mysterious, or sunny and bright. As the painting begins, I revel in capturing the play of light as it slowly reveals the forms and textures, changes colors from cool to warm or reverse. I love the constant selecting and editing – what shape is important, what line to leave out, what edge needs softening or removing altogether? The painting should capture the essence – the strength or joy of the character, nothing more.”
-Betsy Ashton
In November 2006, Betsy Ashton returned to the portrait artist career that she abandoned in 1971, when she took a long detour into television news. Three credits shy of a master of fine arts degree in painting from The American University in Washington, DC, she was an illustrator, artist and art teacher, who sold many pen and ink, charcoal, and acrylic portraits before creating a program in which she taught art on WTTG-TV’s Panorama television program.
This quickly led to her reporting and anchoring radio and television news for nearly two decades, first in Washington, D.C., and later at WCBS-TV and CBS News in New York City. While covering the courts for WJLA-TV News in Washington, she became the first and only TV news reporter ever to draw her own courtroom sketches while covering trials – a feat possible only because lawyers are so redundant! Her sketches were shown daily on television and later exhibited and sold by the Jane Haslem Gallery in Washington.
Ashton resumed painting portraits at the urging of renowned painter Everett Raymond Kinstler, NA, whose workshops she attended at the National Academy School of Fine Arts and the Art Students’ League in New York. At Kinstler’s recommendation, she also took Michael Shane Neal’s portrait painting workshops in Nashville, Tennessee, and studied painting full time for two years with Mary Beth McKenzie and Sharon Sprung at the National Academy School of Fine Arts. She has also taken workshops with Wolf Kahn, Peter Cox and Morton Kaisch at the National Academy School, and painted in Florence, Italy, with McKenzie and the Art Students’ League. In the mid and late 1960s, she studied with Ben Summerford, Helene Herzbrun, Robert D’Arista, Robert Gates and Gene Davis at The American University and the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC.
In 2007-2008, Ashton won four successive scholarships to The National Academy School of Fine Arts.
Ashton’s official portrait of former Ambassador Philip Lader hangs in the collection of the U.S. Embassy in London, United Kingdom. She has served on the jury panel of the Salmagundi Club in New York City and is an Exhibiting Artist member of The National Arts Club. Her portrait of actor Hal Holbrook is in the Hall of Fame collection of the The Players in New York City, and her portrait of author Louise Erdrich is in the collection of the Kenyon Review at Kenyon College.
To lean more and view an online portfolio of Betsy’s work, visit http://www.ashtonportraits.com
“Hal Holbrook, Actor”
“Self-portrait” (featured image)
