Rich Flynn experienced an epiphany of sorts in 1981 when he visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. "That's when I thought, 'I know what I want to do,' " he recalls. Until then he had only experimented with art -- often sketching and doodling in this free time. The visit inspired him to do more. "I was 24, and I knew I'd better get good at something," he says. "I would come home after work and practice, practice, practice every night." He figures he created about 500 paintings in the subsequent decade as he taught himself the craft and developed his own style. In the early days he focused on still lifes, but now he enjoys reproducing images of people and scenes from everday life. His ability to capture special occasions on canvas has led to a significant amount of commission work, and he regularly creates artwork on the spot at Cafe Tu Tu Tango at The Block of Orange. "My work is like journalism with paint; It's capturing the day in paint and then it lives on forever," he says. "And I try to create a feeling of that day that a photo can't."