Patrick Saunders
Kansas

Born: St. Louis, MO, 1970.

Art education: Bachelor of fine arts from the Kansas City Art Institute; workshops with Richard Schmid, Burton Silverman, Skip Lipke, and others.>

Style of work: Figurative and landscape.

First art sale: "In college I sold a piece to the Kemper family, a banking family in Kansas City."

First artwork: "As a kid I drew Star Wars action figures."

Second-choice career: Musician. "I play punk rock guitar and sing."

Favorite artist: Nicolai Fechin.

Favorite subject: Children, especially outdoors in the summertime.

Other passions: "I play a lot of guitar; I'm a self-taught Web designer; and my wife and I just bought an old farm house that we're restoring."

Fantasy trip: "To go back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York."

Favorite studio music: "Really loud, fast punk rock. It stops you from thinking, and it's better not to think when you're painting."

Pet peeve: "People who aren't painting subject matter that they're emotionally attached to, because it really comes across."

Favorite artwork: John Singer Sargent's The Fountain: Villa Torlonia.

Best advice received: Paint what you know.

Creative spark: "The feeling, when a painting is done or halfway done, that I can't remember making the marks. It's exciting to see these things come together and not fully understand how it happens."

Next big goal: "To market myself on the Web."

Price range: $800-$10,000.

Galleries: Eva Reynolds Fine Arts, Kansas City, KS