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At 3 a.m., you won't find most people in their garage with watercolors splashed all over them, frantically painting an image they've seen in a dream.

But you will find Autumn Bobyk doing just that, from time to time. Bobyk is an artist, specializing in watercolor nature paintings, as well as a new technique she has created, called lifting, which is the opposite of traditional painting.

"With lifting, you slather your canvas, whatever that may be, with paint in the forms you want to see at the end. Then, I mix rubber cement together with water and use it to lift color off until I'm satisfied with my work. It leaves a nice texture and very vibrant colors," she says.

Bobyk recently completed a college degree in fine arts, which helped her get a "real" job that still allows her to be creative. She works at a graphics shop, taking photos and logos and transposing them on objects such as letterhead, photos and T-shirts. While not necessarily inspiring, it pays the bills.

"Until you get 'discovered,' as some would say, or you can mount a few shows of your work, you've got to work someplace else in order to support yourself," explains Bobyk.

One year, she spent six months in Korea teaching English as a second language, mostly to make money, but also to see a new culture and take photos for future works of art.

Artists can find inspiration anywhere. Bobyk once painted a watercolor of a spawning salmon from a photo that was more than 15 years old. She found the photo in a box of mismatched photographs. She made 20 prints of her original work, and almost all of them have been sold.

"I gave one to a friend of mine as a gift, and a few months after that I walked into a store and saw it lying there waiting to be framed. I couldn't believe that she liked it enough to spend a hundred bucks mounting it properly."

Nature is one of her main themes. A new passion for her is to make pencil drawings of faces, such as that of her mother or grandmother. Bobyk has also painted artwork on the gas tanks of motorcycles, on vans, and even designed T-shirts for special events in several communities.

For Bobyk, art is a way to express her feelings, and to create images that others may find interesting. She says it's very rewarding when someone likes one of her creations.

"It's like a real connection with the person, that they know what I was trying to put into the print or painting. And sometimes, they interpret my work so differently than my interpretation that a print becomes almost new to me," she says.

Bobyk looks forward to the day when she can stop working for someone else, and work for herself as an artist on a full-time basis. She's had several shows of her work at art galleries, but she'll need a few more shows under her belt before she can quit her day job.

"It'd be nice to just sit in my studio, the garage, all the time working and selling art, and not have to get up in the morning to go to work. That's the best part about being an artist. Setting your own hours. And someday selling a painting for $4 million."

Other artists are similarly enthusiastic about their career choice.

"You want a picture? I make pictures," says Don McMillan, who has more than 40 years of experience as a commercial artist. He's provided art for everything from diagrams of drugs and medications, to weather and space illustrations, to exploded views and cutaway drawings for aircraft companies.

McMillan says his career choice was an easy one: he decided to do what he enjoyed and what he was good at. "The independence and the flexibility are great. I like to work at night and set my own hours, and I get paid to do what I like," he says.

He's quick to mention that things haven't always been so carefree. "In the past 10 years, I haven't had to solicit work; it's come to me through word of mouth. Before that I did have to shop around with my portfolio, trying to get work. Making ends meet when you're first starting out is stressful."

McMillan says his income has been unsteady at times. Consequently, he has no retirement plan. He considers this a trade-off for getting to do what he likes.

He also says he's getting more selective about the assignments he accepts. "I didn't turn down anything when I was younger. In fact, I took on jobs I wasn't even sure I could do. It was good for me because I challenged myself.

"I've probably never made as little money as I make right now, because there's a lot of stuff I don't want to do anymore."

McMillan still does illustrations for magazines, and wildlife drawings for museums of science and nature, but his real interest has become vintage motorcycles. "The motorcycle stuff is brand new. It's something that can't be done on computer and it's something that collectors want."

McMillan's historical illustrations of motorcycles will be showing up in vintage motorcycle magazines, as well as being sold to private collectors. He believes he's found his niche.

"The last painting I did was a six-foot painting of an event from motorcycle racing. It was for a collector in New York who owns one of Clark Gable's old Harleys and some other bikes that are worth over $100,000 a piece. He paid $10,000 for my painting."

While McMillan admits motorcycles are his own love and hobby, it still takes a lot of work and research to make an accurate reproduction of these machines. "Research has always been a big part of the type of illustrations I do because what I do is realistic," he explains.

"The motorcycle prints have to be accurate because they're being bought by collectors who know what these machines look like."

McMillan goes to great lengths to make sure his paintings are not only accurate in detail, but also authentic looking. "This last painting was a lot of work. I had posters in the background that show Harding was elected president, as well as a voting poster for women, because that was the year women got the vote."

Despite the financial uncertainty, McMillan says the life of an artist suits him fine. "I wander into my studio at about 10 o'clock in the morning, start working, and quit when my family gets home from work and school in the evening. Then I start again when everyone goes to bed."

For McMillan, art isn't just his profession, it's his identity. "My life is my own, and I can nap pretty much when I feel like it. I'm not in an environment where I'm judged for nonconformity [not fitting in]. People accept your weirdness when they hear you're an artist. If I were an investment banker, I'd probably die of an ulcer."