Over many years of observation and experience in mineral collecting and painting, I came up with a list of 50 minerals that I felt were the "top 50" species people loved to collect. Once I had painted each of those, I realized there was no way I could stop there. I altered the list to the top 60, and finally to the top 65. I could have easily kept going, as there are literally thousands of interesting and beautiful minerals. But, since I had much intensive research to do about each of these 65 species, I stopped there.
I sourced information from absolutely everywhere. Initially, I checked out every mineralogy book from my local library. That quickly revealed that there was a lack of depth and interest I was looking for. So, I turned to purchasing antique mineralogy books from Ebay. I began to form quite a rich database of modern and historical data just from all thsee books. But, we all know that the internet is probably the most up-to-date source on scientific data. So it was there that I cross referenced and double checked every detail on the cards to make sure the information I included was accurate and reliable.