It’s been 20 years since Painter of Light Thomas Kinkade completed the mini-epic “Auburn Centennial” and moved on, as it turned out, to a much bigger artistic arena.

In fact, it’s been 14 years since he left his hometown of Placerville behind for Los Gatos, near San Jose.

Hundreds of paintings and prints later, and many millions of dollars richer, Kinkade hasn’t forgotten his foothills roots. He returned to Hangtown this past weekend for a personal appearance to debut his newest limited edition print “Hometown Christmas Memories,” embark on a string of local media interviews touching on his new direct-to-DVD release “Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage,” and, in little over half an hour, take Media Life on a whirlwind tour of his Auburn painting “Auburn Centennial.”

After 20 years, Kinkade remembered plenty. A voluble conversationalist, the artist examined a faded poster-print of his painting – the original now hangs proudly and prominently in the first-floor foyer of Auburn’s Placer County Courthouse – and pointed out the nuances and background details that he could only know.

Here are a few of the tour highlights:

- Comparing the visual impact of the Placer County Courthouse looming over the Old Town Auburn scene to the prominence of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Kinkade said it was imperative he be as exact as possible in the detail of the city’s most famous landmark. That meant using a telephoto lense to ensure he got the “Justice” statues perched on the roof just right.

- Kinkade divulged that he was his high school’s top math student and teachers tagged him for a career in mathematics. That aptitude shows through in his paintings. Like his other works, “Auburn Centennial” is a labor in establishing depth using a formula that brings the reader in at the lower-right hand side of the painting (where a “painter” figure Kinkade used himself as a model for holds a framed, double-vision version of “Auburn Centennial) and then takes the viewer’s eye counterclockwise. At the same time, Kinkade said he was trying for an “orbital” effect, where the viewer is also “moving” into the painting from the top and then out again at the bottom. Kinkade describes the effect as akin to “floating” in a third dimension.

- Don’t necessarily believe people when they say they’re the subjects for some of the many people wandering the Old Town streetscape of “Auburn Centennial.” Kinkade said that his new DVD, which has a Placerville setting, brings up that phenomenon, where people begin to see themselves in the painting. Kinkade used himself as a model three times in his Auburn work. His wife, Nanette, is there too. (For more on that, see this past Monday’s news story, “Kinkade Remembers”). “I was too cheap to hire models,” he said, with a smile.

- Kinkade decided to invent a marching band that would walk through the picture with children tagging behind. But he abandoned the idea as the deadline for completing the commissioned painting approached. Instead, you see a two-man band consisting of a tuba player and bass drummer walking in front of former Old Town business Godfather’s Pizza.

- Kinkade may have started a small controversy in stating that the artist figure at the bottom right of “Auburn Centennial” is no artist in particular. The figure has been regularly identified as Norman Rockwell but Kinkade said he was the model. He didn’t volunteer that the figure is Rockwell and if you look closely, Rockwell doesn’t look like the figure.

- There are two Brittany spaniels standing unleashed on the rain-slicked street at the foot of a Boy Scout. The two dogs were a neighbor’s pets, Kinkade said. The bulldog at lower left was in the picture because Kinkade’s wife, Nanette, is a big fan of the breed. And that horse and rider in the background? Kinkade said he noticed a hitching post in Old Town on an early visit. Looking back, he said he didn’t know whether it was decoration or real but that he liked the idea of a town where someone could ride a horse. With the painting’s “blended time frame,” Kinkade said he had no qualms about mixing something that may not have occurred in 1988 but would have taken place years before.

- Those two classic autos came from Kinkade’s collection of sketches of neighbors’ old and unusual vehicles – and served as a visual counterpoint to the mundane autos from the 1980s in the pictures. He pointed out a Christian “fish” symbol on the car to the far right of the painting. He also paused for a moment to admire the red “glow” he achieved on the taillight of the picture’s Ford Pinto.

- Kinkade, circa 1988, also looked into the future in a way that pleased him when he was told that there now are no utility poles or lines in Old Town Auburn. He didn’t want them cluttering up his image so he used his artistic license to remove them.

- The painting also tries to be a little coy on what season it is. Kinkade said that the scene suggests summer or fall but he didn’t want it to be seasonal. Instead, he saw “Auburn Centennial” as an iconic image of a town, not a season.

- Look at a photo of Old Town and you would be hard-pressed to visualize the same exact streetscape. That’s because Kinkade “compressed” elements to ensure they all fitted onto the canvas. “I had to crunch the architecture to make it work,” he said. And that has to do with the way Kinkade approaches his work. Quoting Ernest Hemingway, the artist said great literature is a lie made to tell the truth. In Kinkade’s words, his style of painting “has to exaggerate to romanticize.”

- While the eye trains in on the amazing amount of detail, a glorious sky at sunset bathes the scene in warm hues. Kinkade said that he was particularly satisfied with the reflections he was able to capture in the rain-washed street. He compared painting the vibrant hues on the blacktop to creating a body of water.

Kinkade admitted that he continues to see a scene that portrays an active, friendly and diverse community.

And while the scene may be different than when you visit Old Town in person, Kinkade said the painting is meant to be an entity in itself – a balance of detail with the payoff of an overall mood that’s as positive and friendly as the people in “Auburn Centennial.”

Media Life’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.