Herb Kane, one of Hawai'i's most distinguished artists, creates detailed paintings of Polynesia. From ancient voyaging canoes to Hawaiian villages to modern moments in the Islands, his works have celebrated culture and history with uncommon images.

But some of Kane's most challenging works have been his simplest: his postage stamps.

His newest one, released by the postal service today, honors the 50th anniversary of Hawai'i statehood.

The painting reproduced on the 44-cent stamp — a surfer and a canoe on a cresting blue swell — is Kane's seventh U.S. stamp. It's also a statehood anniversary sequel. One of his paintings was used to mark the 25th anniversary of statehood.

Good design is the key to a good stamp, he said.

"You draw it up larger, of course, but the game is to simplify, simplify, simplify because your color masses and your shapes are vastly simplified when it comes to a stamp," said the 81-year-old Kane by phone from his home in rural south Kona. "One can do a beautiful painting of a larger size, but when you reduce it to the size of a postage stamp, it can look like mud."

Seven million of the 40 million stamps printed by the postal service will be sold in Hawai'i. Two special cancellation events are planned today.

The surfing theme was one of several ideas that Kane submitted, in the form of rough sketches, about two years ago, he said. Kane believes surfing struck the right tone with the postal service.

"I informed them that surfing was really invented in Hawai'i," he said. "It's entirely a Hawaiian product."

His 1984 stamp was much different — and more complex. It featured a voyaging canoe, an erupting volcano and a golden plover in flight.

It was also 20 cents.

Kane has been painting since he earned a master's degree in art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. Raised on the Big Island and in Wisconsin, he has also studied Hawaiian history and played a key role in the creation of the Hokule'a.

His early career was spent in advertising in Chicago, but he returned to Hawai'i in 1970 and began to focus on Hawaiian projects. By 1984, he was named a "Living Treasure of Hawai'i" and has painted more projects than he can count.

Kane paints every day, but also manages a small publishing business and an orchard of avocado and macadamia nut trees.

He hadn't planned on doing the 50th anniversary stamp. The call from the postal service was a pleasant surprise, he said.

It only took a few days to paint the finished product, which he made larger — 30 inches — than the paintings usually sent to the postal service. Those are usually about 12 inches.

Creating a painting that winds up on an envelope instead of on a wall offers a very different reward, Kane said.

"It's a challenge, a very special kind of challenge, and I sort of rise to the bait," he said. "It starts out with curiosity on the part of the artist, wanting to find out if he can do it. It's an interesting experience."