Category: Artwork

I’ve been a professional artist for many years, sketching and painting landscapes, wildlife, and portraits, creating book cover art, and drawing comic strips for newspapers. Join me here where I share my favorites.

Louie and Bruce 002-2023-0526

This comic page is from September 1981. The top 4 panels tell a complete story that I could have used as a short strip. But they tie into the story’s gag at the end. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. And as always, peace and love. Steve, 5/26/2023 This post “Louie and Bruce 002-2023-0526” … Continue reading Louie and Bruce 002-2023-0526

A Look Back at Louie and Bruce

Louie and Bruce 001-2022-1020, posted Oct. 20, 2022 I was 9 when I fell in love with drawing cartoons. I copied my favorite TV, newspaper, and comic book characters as best I could. At 13, I drew my own “toons,” putting on silly plays between the characters I created. No other form of storytelling allowed … Continue reading A Look Back at Louie and Bruce

Painting and Fixing the First Draft, Part 2

Previously, I wrote about ways I develop first drafts of paintings, then transfer elements I like from the first draft and create a better second draft painting. This time, I want to show how I correct the first draft without making a new painting. The oil painting above shows a whitetail buck drinking at a … Continue reading Painting and Fixing the First Draft, Part 2

Painting and Fixing the First Draft, part 1

As a writer and an artist, I see similarities of writing stories and poetry, and painting paintings. For this post, I’m including double photos of some of my paintings, showing the “first draft” of an idea, and the final draft of the painting. I almost always begin the construction of my paintings from a series … Continue reading Painting and Fixing the First Draft, part 1

Fantasy

I write a lot of fantasy fiction. It began when I was in high school. I like fantasy because it’s about what’s not possible. My journey into fantasy didn’t begin with writing, but with art. Fantasy allowed me to explore my imagination—there was no limit to what I could draw. It could get silly at … Continue reading Fantasy

Painting from Memory

This week, I found an old mind-to-hand exercise painting from 1986. I occasionally did mind-to-hand exercise paintings to keep my coordination and reflexes sharp. Instead of painting something in front of me—a still-life, for example—I painted from memory, which is what mind-to-hand exercise painting is. I used acrylic paints because of their quick drying time … Continue reading Painting from Memory

Winter’s Coming

November brought some snow to my neck of the woods and the touches of winter put me in a writing mood. Many of my writer friends partook in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) during November, trying to write a 50,000-word first-draft novel by the end of the month. I, on the other hand, worked on … Continue reading Winter’s Coming

Being Funny Again

I began drawing comic strips when I was a boy. I loved to laugh, so my favorite movies and television shows were comedies, and my favorite books were joke books. MAD was my favorite magazine, and The Dr. Demento Show was my favorite radio program, so zany situations and play on words made their way … Continue reading Being Funny Again

Louie and Bruce 001-2022-1020

I was 9 or 10 when I fell in love with drawing cartoons. I copied everything popular on TV and in the newspapers and comic books. At 13, I began drawing my own “toons.” This allowed me to put on plays between the characters I created. The shows were silly or serious, sublime or nonsensical, … Continue reading Louie and Bruce 001-2022-1020

It Began With Watercolors

Like most kids in the U.S., I began my painting experience with a child’s watercolor pan set, also called a box set by my Canadian cousins. Those sets had a small painter’s brush and six blocks of colors bound by gum arabic inside: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Even at the high school … Continue reading It Began With Watercolors