George W Bush Painting: Art Teacher Says '43' Has Talent

George W. Bush is apparently a talented artist, according to his former art instructor, who told a TV station the ex-president picked up the craft “amazingly” quickly.

He also enjoys painting pictures of dogs.

Atlanta’s Fox 5 recently spoke to Bonnie Flood, a Georgia art instructor who worked with Bush for about six hours a day for a month.

“He picked it up so quick, it was amazing actually,” Flood told the station. “His whole heart is in.”

Bush’s new hobby caused a stir after The Smoking Gun published photos of some of his artistic endeavors, part of a trove of Bush family emails that were hacked.

Two of the paintings, which Bush had apparently e-mailed to his sister, were self-portraits standing in the shower, and a view of his legs as he takes a bath.

Several art critics took the opportunity to analyze the “real meaning” of the paintings. The New Republic hypothesized that in the painting “Man in Shower,” Bush “watched from above, as if surveying the scene from the aircraft, a vaguely confused look on his face." Meanwhile, the New York magazine critic Jerry Salz, writing for Vulture, said the works “border on visionary, the absurd, the perverse, the frat boy.”

Before Bush started painting himself in the nude, Flood said the former president – whom she calls “43” -- painted some 50 portraits of dogs. She said she convinced him to expand his repertoire.