Herd has done nine paintings of scenic byways in the state for the Kansas Lottery. Four of the byways are featured on scratch-off tickets.

Wakeeney ? As a child growing up in Protection, Stan Herd drew a picture of a whale with a fountain of water streaming from its back.

It was later submitted to The Hutchinson News by a family member, and Herd said it was the publication of that drawing that gave him an early glimpse into what the future had in store for him.

“I thought ‘That’s it. I’m an artist,”‘ Herd, of Lawrence, said.

He’s promoting his involvement with the Painted Byways Project, a Kansas Lottery scratch ticket game started in May.

It’s been many years since that childhood brush with fame. Herd doesn’t draw whales anymore, not when his work is commissioned by the lottery, Kansas Department of Transportation, Kansas Arts Council and Kansas Department of Commerce to be the face of a large-scale initiative to raise awareness about some of the most scenic roads in the state.

It was stories of his humble beginnings and a more prolific present Herd shared, while offering a chance for the audience to see his work — including the original copy of his Smoky Valley Scenic Byway painting created for the campaign — up close and personal.

“I’ve admired Stan’s work for years,” said Pat Van Dolah, a Kansas history teacher from Garden City. “I’m definitely putting my poster (of Herd’s nine byways paintings) in the classroom for my kids to see.”

Van Dolah, like others at the library that day and many more curious travelers, said she was struck by the view she saw while driving through the area about a year ago.

“I thought it was just gorgeous,” she said.

The problem is, despite the advertising done since the byway program began in the early 1990s, “there’s so many people that … don’t know a byway is there,” said Mary Hendricks, a member on the Smoky Valley Scenic Byway committee who works for WaKeeney Travel and Tourism.

That’s where Herd’s work should help.

Although the economy has business down 2.6 percent from last year, Kansas Lottery product sales for fiscal year 2009 were still a whopping $230.5 million.

The hope, KDOT Public Involvement Liaison Sue Stringer said, is that some of those Painted Byways ticket sales will draw more visitors to the featured destinations.

“We’re drawing in a little bit of a different audience,” she said, in part because nonwinning tickets can be mailed back to the lottery for entrance into a second-chance drawing to win one of the nine paintings.

As an artist, Herd said he used to have inherent reservations about taking up commercial assignments, but with a family to feed, he wasn’t too keen on living the life of a starving artist. That, and the byway project seemed to mesh with the type of work he already liked to do.

Best known for his immense earthworks, in which he uses the ground as a canvas and a tractor as his paintbrush, Herd said he already had visited many of the byway locations prior to starting on his artistic renditions.

The Kansas Lottery tickets feature scenes from one of four Kansas Scenic Byways — Flint Hills, Glacial Hills, Gypsum Hills and Native Stone.

For the sake of the byway promotional campaign, many are hoping his paintings reach out to motorists.

“To really see Kansas, you have to get off the interstate,” Hendricks said.