Sylvester Stallone is picturing his future in painting once again.
The First Blood star, 76, revealed on Instagram Saturday that he's ready to pick up the brush once more and that it's "about time to start painting again."
"What is wonderful about painting, it's similar to writing a short screenplay, but instead of words, you use strokes and colors to tell your story," Stallone shared with his followers.
Stallone shared his update with fans alongside a few of his works, all of which are relatively abstract, and a couple of which feature painted versions of himself and his characters.
It's been some time since the Tulsa King star updated followers on his additional artistic endeavors on Instagram. His most recent IG post including his art was shared back in November of 2021, when he uploaded an image of a rendition he made of the Rocky poster. At the time, he wrote, "the Rocky poster painting is just me having fun."
Before that, in June 2020, he shared an image of his work "When Love Hurts" to Instagram, writing "This painting represents the tumultuous sea of emotions one must navigate to find lasting love."
On the actor's Sylvester Stallone Art page, he last regularly uploaded his paintings in 2021, occasionally posing with them and offering some behind-the-scenes insight. And his works go way back, even before he rose to icon status.
One painting that Stallone posted was from 1974. "Before I wrote the script for Rocky, because I wanted to have a mental image of him in my mind, so this is the way I pictured him at the time...The eyes tell the story."
While Stallone's art website hasn't been up and running for some time, an archived version of the site describes him as someone who "would spend his life painting instead of starring in movies" if given the choice.
"There is a public face and a private face," Stallone said on the site. "I feel the same way about art. It's a collage of emotions. And when you can transfer that onto the canvas, it's an amazing feeling."
The "Finding Rocky" painting, as it was called on his site, is one of his best-known works to date, featuring a collage of fight headlines and the skyline of a city behind the character. His other works include titles such as "The Opponent," "Scar" and "Still Fighting."
According to Artsy, Stallone points to notable names like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon as artistic inspirations, and his work has been featured in exhibits in Russia and France.
In 2021, he opened the largest retrospective of his paintings in Germany, called Sylvester Stallone: The Magic of Being. Taking place at the Osthaus Museum Hagen, the exhibition was an "amazing honor," he told The Hollywood Reporter.
"It's an amazing honor to have my work hanging here, next to some of the greatest artists in the world," said Stallone, who said he was first inspired to paint thanks to works by Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning. "This gallery world is still a very new world for me."
