Steve bio/artist statement.

I have lived in Central Iowa my whole life, being a 1997 Indianola High School Grad and a 2000 DMACC grad - AA in Commercial Art. I've been interested in art since I was in grade school, but it wasn't until about 8th grade that I really started to take it seriously. In high school, I excelled in Drawing, Painting, and Commercial Art classes, but still hadn't settled on a career plan. After high school, I worked 2 jobs for the first year and still would draw when I had the time. I also had a 1985 Monte Carlo SS, which kept me busy - I rebuilt the engine myself and it was my first true "hot rod". That first year of freedom was awesome, but I did enroll at DMACC in the summer of 1998. At the start of my second semester I made a very important decision: I dropped Illustration 2 in favor of Airbrush 1. I had never used an airbrush before, but I caught on quickly and was comfortable with it right away. That summer, 1999, I went to work at Adventureland drawing caricatures. It was a bit rocky at the start, but I've always been good at drawing people, so I caught on, and I would continue to do this for several years. Meanwhile, I was reading airbrush magazines and I discovered pin-up art, specifically the works of Jennifer Janesko. I loved it immediately and thought I'd like to work in that genre someday. After college, I held various jobs in web design and in photo finishing. I always found it boring and would return to draw caricatures at Adventureland in the summer, and also did free-lance illustration, custom airbrush painting, and caricature gigs. In 2004 I launched my first website, and began doing airbrush and illustration work for clients as far away as England. I also continued to develop my pin-up style works, and interest started to build little by little. In May 2007, I signed my first licensing contract with Up Your Art and today, I exclusively create fine art which can be categorized as pin-up, glamour, beauty, and sometmes even fantasy.

My paintings are a combination of reality and fantasy. The personality and character traits of my models are often incorporated in the work, often times in very subtle ways. Usually, I do not elaborate on this, so that the viewer can make an impartial interpretation. I love faces, and I love the subtleties of expressions. The fantastic or surreal elements of my works are often influenced by not only my own imagination, but also again by the model herself, and sometimes by music. I like a lot of music, and the music of George Harrison to Frank Sinatra to Motorhead has influenced numerous works and ideas. I continue to seek new influences, while I continue to develop my style and methods.