Still, he never planned to sell anything until he mentioned in passing to Michael O'Mahoney, president of the Wentworth Gallery, that he painted. O'Mahoney asked to take a look and was impressed. He's since mounted about two dozen Stanley shows around the country.

The artist's work hopscotches from style to style, influenced, he says, by everyone from Picasso to Michelangelo to Warhol to numerous other painters he admires.

But that doesn't mean, O'Mahoney says, that the result doesn't reflect a unique vision.

"To convey warmth, anger, sadness, happiness onto a piece of canvass, there's no precise formula for doing that," he says. "Either you've got it or you don't have it. He's got it."

And while O'Mahoney acknowledges that Stanley's art world debut certainly wasn't dampened by the fact he's a rock star, he quickly adds that success in another field can only carry a person so far.

"There are other famous celebrities who do art, who I'm certainly not going to name," the gallery owner says. "But I've been approached by them and I've said, 'No, no no. No thank you. I don't care that you can fill a gallery. I've still got to look at my client at the end of the day and say, 'My God, you paid $5,000 for that?'"

Even if people had rejected his paintings, Stanley says, he would have kept on creating them and, at the least, put them in his closet.

"The whole idea of my getting into art in the first place, or music, was to make myself happy," he says. "Anybody else liking what I do is a bonus."

And if his venture into fine art was predicated by some trying emotional times, those are now in the past. Remarried in 2005, he is the father of sons ages 14 and 2 and a daughter born Jan. 28.

"I'm up in the morning taking my oldest to school, then making breakfast for my next one and then burping the next one," laughs the 57-year-old artist who is dressed this day in an untucked black shirt, blue jeans and black work boots. His long black hair, showing just a few touches of gray, frames his makeup-free face. His guitar and a pair of small speakers sit nearby.

He'll have to put some of his parental chores aside for a while in the spring, Stanley says, when Kiss launches a tour of South America, followed by one of Canada. The group also has a new album in the works.

With all of that on his plate, his painting will also likely have to go on the back burner for the first time in years. But he says he's looking forward to the inspiration he hopes to gather while on the road. It is inspiration he hopes will transfer to canvasses rich in color in whatever style he chooses to paint them.

"I'm on this journey without a map," he says. "The only thing that's consistent is the idea of expressing myself in color because to me life is incredible. It's rich. It's vibrant. And on it's worst day, it's a miracle."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.