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PAGE 16 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, +282 <m i o Soled Bar. Soup. Ribs. Lasagna. Chicken. Spaghotti . . . _ Reg. $7.95 Smoncassorm s5s [ After dinner visit Charlie‘s Backyard! It‘s the place to party. Entertainment & dancing nightly. No cover charge. The show will also be performed in Fergus Dec. 11. A march on City Hall shouldn‘t be the only time wl $ 88W & Chronicle Staff When Robert Myers first picked up a paintâ€" brush 15 years ago, he did it looking for some activity to "while away those long winter hours." Never did he dream that his work would be good enough to someday consider selling it, never mind that people would want to buy it. Myers has come a long way since those days â€" his work is now handled by galleries locally as well as in Sarnia and Michigan and his paintings are included in private collections across Canada, the United States, in Australia, Engâ€" land and New Zealand. "It is rather fun because I never thought that this would happen," Myers said. "I started off fiddling with oils on my own, then acrylics, then in 1976â€"77 1 took a class in watercolors. At first I said, ‘I can‘t do watercolors‘."‘ Now watercolor is the only medium that Myers, a Stratford native now living in Waterâ€" loo, will work in. "It‘s fast and impressionistic, it‘s spontaneous, far more challenging because you never really know what will happen when you put paint on wet paper,"" he explained. Myers‘ specialty is landscape painting, espeâ€" cially of scenes in the Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo area and the Muskokas. "I like to stick with what I know best, what I can create a mood with," he said. "I don‘t have a great deal of talent for still life, I don‘t have any talent for portraits and I‘m no good with animals. s Ideas for his paintings, Myers said, can come from many sources; sometimes from photoâ€" graphs or rough sketches of areas he has seen and places he has been. But, often he creates his landscapes as he works. "Very often I don‘t know what I will do when I wet the paper, I don‘t have any idea. Other times I will have an idea but it won‘t work and I‘ll let wha.(rfs happening Wellâ€"known artist: likes to take risks on the paper determine what the finished painting will be." And, Myers said, his style of painting has changed over the years as his mastery of the techniques of watercolor painting have inâ€" creased. "I‘ve loosened up," he said. "I‘m moving away from sharp realism into impresâ€" sionistic realism, using fewer colors to achieve the effect I want. "It takes a lot of hard work and tears, hundreds of sheets of paper before you start loosening up and know what you can do with the l(yers‘ssaid. Myers is the first to admit he still has a lot to learn about painting in watercolor, but, he said, that is one of the attractions of the medium. ‘"There is enough to learn in watercolor to keep me going ... I don‘t think you ever feel that you‘ve exhausted the medium." To this end Myers is continually innovating and experimenting in his work, trying different techniques and "playing with different colors. 1 like to take risks as a painter," he remarked. The next step, Myers said, is to branch out into different subjects, which means "starting all over again with a whole different set of problems to overcome."‘ Despite the success that he has already gained as an artist, painting remains a hobby for Myers whose "official occupation" is as professor of French at the University of Waterloo, where he has taught for the past 20 years. But, Myers confessed, painting is a hobby which is continually taking up more of his time. **Sometimes I spend too much time painting and not enough with work," he said. "It becomes an obsession when you reach a certain stage where things are working right. You hate to let up on it because you are afraid you might lose that touch," Myers said. "I‘m just now reaching that stage. There are still some disasters but fewer and fewer are comâ€" and what the paper can do for you," CA A on r a see