“Paint, no battles, no accomplishments. Paint the feeling of the great river winding through the land and lovers lying on her shores. Paint children at play in the bulrushes. Paint the graceful Ibis wading. Paint fishermen in their boats catching fish and the great muscled flanks of my horse, his exquisite head with his nostrils flaring. Paint the beauty of the Queen’s sad eyes, the curve of her neck and bodice. Paint the great ocean with her sea birds. Paint the feminine … paint women washing clothes at the river’s edge, women in the market place, mother with child. Paint musicians playing and villagers dancing. Paint the great mating rituals of men and of beasts. Let your brushes and your paint celebrate the beauty of life, tomb painter! It is remembrance of the light that ferries the soul to the far shore.”

Bill Rane, Diary Of A Tomb Painter