This is a straightforward realist painting. And a familial one. It's staged a bit like "The Feast of the Gods" (by Giovanni Bellini, and by Titian, too) at the National Gallery of Art, which is tattooed on my brain. I've known it since I was a kid. I went there all the time. I'd take the L4 bus down to the museum, and that was it. I'd be lost for hours.

We're on an island in the Potomac, where we often camped. There's a roll of toilet paper in the tree at the left, because that's where we kept it, unless it rained. That's Jack, my grandson, in the chair; next to him Rafe, my son (we named him after Raphael), is scratching a mosquito bite and admiring one of his own paintings; Tracy, my son-in-law, is the man standing in profile; Robert, my former son-in-law, is the one with the guitar. Behind him, on the table, is a battery-operated boombox.

I often put myself in my paintings -- as both a witness and participant. I don't have to use a mirror, or a photograph, I've been doing it so long. Here I am alert. Maybe I've detected a monster in the bushes: That's one thing I learned from Picasso -- always keep in mind the reverberant paganism vibrating in the trees. Maybe I've just heard another canoe arriving. Or perhaps I've just noticed . . . you!

Joe Shannon: Realism Surrealism will be at American University Museum, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, May 27 through July 27. For information call 202-885-1300. Hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; admission is free.