Arnold Schwarzenegger has no problem impressing his family on birthdays and anniversaries - he paints their greetings cards.

The TERMINATOR star is a closet artist who likes to lock himself away after his family goes to sleep and work on his brush strokes. But he never sells off his artwork - he turns it into card designs, family calendars and gifts for his wife Maria Shriver.

He says, "I think I have maybe 40 or 50 paintings at home. My wife has half of them in her bathroom..

"What I do is I sit in Sun Valley, Idaho, where we have a home. When everyone goes to sleep at 10 I go upstairs to my office and I put on the fireplace and the music and I have the greatest time, I paint until two in the morning every day.

"I use acrylic. My ideas, sometimes I get them off wrapping paper. One time we went to a dolphin show and so I made a painting with three dolphins jumping through the air."

10/06/2003 09:24