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- Ever since I was little, I loved animals.
It is just in me through and through.
I was the kid that somebody would find a bug in our house,
and say, "Oh, there's a beetle here."
And I'd yell, "Don't kill it."
And I'd be running over
and I'd grab it and I'd put it outside.
I've always been that way, so it's-- I can't explain it.
I am Jan Killian.
I'm a full-time artist.
I live in Cumberland, Wisconsin.
I paint wildlife.
I love painting birds and frogs and turtles.
I take my own pictures and paint from that.
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I paint with alcohol ink.
Alcohol ink is just a dye-based ink in an alcohol solution.
I'm not much of an abstract artist.
I paint more realism.
A lot of alcohol ink is done
with just abstract because it is so hard to control.
It's like painting with water, basically,
but it moves on its own.
It dries within probably seven seconds.
I did a lot of research online
and looked for other people that were painting with it.
And I couldn't find anybody.
It was basically abstract.
Just the difficulty in it, it was such a challenge.
And I just love challenges.
Finally just through my own, you know, determination,
I figured out a way to control it.
When I want to start a painting, I start with the eye.
If I can get that eye perfect so it draws people in,
you can basically do anything else you want
with the rest of the painting
because the eye is telling the story.
And the rest of it just comes along.
I do my best to wrangle it to get control.
It just depends upon the subject
and the detail and how the ink is flowing that day
'cause it definitely has a mind of its own.
I have known a lot of other artists that have said,
you know, they see my work.
And they think, "Oh, this would be so much fun to try."
And then, you know, they buy the inks
and they say, "There's no way.
"I just-- this is crazy.
I can't do it." [chuckles]
So, but a lot of it is just determination.
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I love doing the process.
From taking the pictures.
Here, chickadee-dee-dee!
[camera clicks]
To creating the artwork
and having my soul go into each piece.
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It's just-- yeah, I couldn't be happier. [chuckles]
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