Portraits! What a great way to make a
living! What other job exists where you can gently mix creativity,
emotion,
color and hard work and pour it all into a comfortable living? Or
take the same ingredients, shake them up a bit and pour them into an
experience? What other job affords such a diverse array of
experiences in the form of people, places, movement, sounds and
above all, a visual cornucopia of treasures?
 Sure,
awards and recognition are pretty exciting at first, but after awhile,
well, it's the clients who matter most! Maybe you've seen
my artwork in “Veranda”, “Carolina Country” or
“Our State?” Or maybe you've seen my
illustrations in Breakthrough Publications, McGraw Hill or
Houghton-Mifflin publications? I have over a thousand portraits
displayed in homes and businesses around the globe. Now that's
exciting! It is hard to put a price on the gratification
and emotional value of portraits and artwork that delight my
clients!
My university art experience did not exactly match my artistic hopes.
The reality of the education was actually a
disappointment. But what I did discover was that life experiences
strengthen the artistic mind and open the doors to the colors and
dynamics all around us! I like to think that pieces of an artist's life
experiences lodge somewhere on shelves in the mind just waiting to be
pulled out and dusted off when the visual need arises! And
so when I create a painting for a client, a little piece of me goes
onto the canvas.
We're here to help you! Just ask us!
The tall guy with the easel, that's Steve!
He has a great following among his collectors for his plein air oils.
His unique red canvas backgrounds enhance his landscape techniques and
delight his collectors! His style is his own and people love to watch
him at his easel on location where the viewer can pause and see
his surroundings through Steve's eyes.
His artistic talent was recognized early in
his Philadelphia schools yet his journey eventually led him away from a
degree at Penn State in architecture and into the art arena he loved
most. He studied under some of Philadelphia's finest, learning the
art of hand applied gold leaf gilding and sign crafting
before taking his skills and moving south to North
Carolina. All the while he kept his sketchbooks and portfolios filled
with paintings, sketches, watercolors and vignettes of what he saw and
felt around him.
He opened a sign business with a friend in Wake
Forest, NC and from there branched out on his own as he expanded his
gold leaf gilding and restoration work up and down the East
Coast. Bachelor Steve met single mom artist, M Theresa Brown,
through friends at an art event in Raleigh and with their eventual
marriage, he became part of a lively family of four children
and 3 dogs! Together they combined their diverse
talents and styles into a thriving art business and have enjoyed living
the life of an artist in all the
creativity, collaborations, compromises, versatility and artistic
freedoms that come along with such a unique lifestyle. The two built
their large art studio next to their home after dismantling an old
1910 house. In their country setting, they built a woodworking shop,
added pastures for the horses, created lush wild rose gardens, herb
gardens and water features. The family hiked, kayaked and explored
remote areas of the state. As the children grew, more rescue dogs and
cats came into the home until now, with all four
children grown and engaged in their own art careers, Steve
and Theresa count the two ponies, 5 dogs and the pygmy goat as family
members!
Steve's style has evolved from years
of color applications, creative designs and his notebooks of
sketches. His signature style is
his unique, painterly touch combined with the
rich, jewel like colors of oil paints. He provides the
same touch with his beautiful translucent watercolors and his clients
love their portraits in that medium! Steve brings his skills to
his art and painting workshops and stays busy traveling to the shows
meeting his friends and collectors!
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