If I could doing thing I wanted to do (Had all the money to do anything) I would paint. To put brush to canvas is what I was created to do. The more I paint the more I want to paint. To set up here on a mountain or no a goldrush towns street and paint is when I feel I was living out my purpose. I find that it dosn't mater the subject or weather I'm setting in a meadow or working from a photo. I have painted portraits and love doing them but thats not always been the case. I first painted my first portrait back in when I was about 14 it was so so. I didn't try another till I was in my late 20s and that one wasn't much better. But it was a little better and I still have that painting. At the same time my father was taking art lesson and I took the only art lesson I have ever taken then. I did my first painting of a car. It was naturally a racing car (My other passion) and it came out very good. At the end of that lesson the teacher said that he would be glad to teach me but that I had all the fundamentals that any artist needed. What I really needed to do is to paint about 200 paintings and that I would be a master.  I'm at around 100 to 150 paintings now and I have come a long way in my work. I have do paintings that I'm very pleased with and when looking at my first works and the lastest works I feel that teacher may have been saying that because he belived it not just to inspire me. I sometimes wonder if learning on your own at the school of hard knocks. I work a full time job  and the supervisors all have to be collage graduates and they don't know their jobs. Not that they are stupid because they aren't. But I think that when people go to collage that they learn to have book tell them how to think. Some times collage kills that ability to work outside the box. I also feel that the same can be said for art collage. Not that if you go to art school that you will not be able to be creative. But if you let the teacher tell you how to think when you go out into the real world it can cloud you view of your art. The learned people of art didn't think much of Van Gogh's art when he was painting. If he listened to them we would not know his work because he would of stopped painting. I wonder how many other Van Gogh's listened and never did their art.

Life as an artist is a loooonnnnng journey of sacrifices - I can't remember the last time I went fishing (and it sounds like a great idea).  I am also a baby boomer.

This passion to create is a double edge sword.  But we are obsessed; I understand the insanity of Van Gogh.  We have a hole inside that is ravinous and we have to fill it by creating.  It gnaws at us until we paint in our sleep and get up at 3:00 am to lay it on canvas.

Have you tried starting with some local art shows?  Have you tried eBay? Do you have a web site? Do you exhibit? Is there a local art association or small gallery where you could get an exhibit? Ever go out on side the road and set up to paint? - lots of people stop to talk; show them the paintings you just happen to have in the trunk of your car. Ever contact a local store with a front window and offer to set up and paint in the window? Or, set up on the sidewalk at their front door. (Furniture stores, art supply, office supply and restaurants are great for this - how about a bank? - traffic at restaurants and money at banks)   HAPPY HUNTING - or is that fishing?