How long have you been creating?

My art was there all the time...I think I have a very "visual" mind. Frequently, I have dreams and I imagine how those dreams would translate into a painting. I have always known that I would be an artist. Throughout the years I have routinely been asked to paint for others. I was always illustrating - it could be a school newspaper, invitation for a friend, or just a silly card to use for a birthday. These early attempts soon grew to include book cover illustrations, commissioned portraits and much more. Now I am lucky to have my art being licensed for many products and to appear in so many publications, I never believed it could be possible.

What is your media of choice?

My main mediums are watercolor and acrylic. Watercolor is gentle and almost ethereal way of expression and still stays my favorite and acrylic is something more bold and colorful. I also use Ink especially for creating character illustrations for games. I also like soft pastels.

What are you motivations for creating?

Painting is my way of living. My expression, my daily medicine and sometimes also a challenge. I feel better when I paint and I find everything around me as endless inspiration. I also believe that using different colors can help me to create different moods and changes even in myself. I hope my paintings can bring magic to the people around me - or at least to show them the world through different eyes.

What other artists or movements inform your work?

This is difficult to answer because my inspirations changes. I find inspiration if variety of artists, movements and creations. It depends on what I seek in particular period of time.

What do you find visually stimulating right now?

My surrounding, my children, my daily challenges - each of them brings such a different painting. I love looking through a photographs to find something that "clicks".....sometimes landscapes or scenes can bring a mood for specifical creation. When I am working on specifical illustration I also love to read history behind specifical character - it truly helps you to bring a vision.

What's the last book you read?

"The Langoliers" of Stephen King - he still stays one of my favorite writers. I think behind his "horror writer" face there is so much more. He is able to bring your old fears and to help you to deal with them. It was always amazing for me how specifical books of him I was reading was "matching" the challenges or situations I was going through myself. He also helped me to explain to so many people why actually I paint fantasy :) I was reading not so long ago "The Sun Dog" and I thought HOW TRUE it was;

How many of fantasy artists getting remarks by telling somebody that they are a FANTASY ARTIST? How many of them getting suggestions of "growing up and finally painting something serious"? How many of them have been told that "fantasy art" is not something to consider as a career?

How many times we show them different????

"Every now and then someone will ask me, "When are you going to get tired of this horror stuff, Steve, and write something serious?"

I used to believe the implied insult in this question was accidental, but as the years go by I have become more and more convinced that it is not. I watch the faces of the people who drop that particular dime, you see, and most of them look like bombardiers waiting to see if their last stick of bombs is going to fall wide or hit the targeted factory of munitions dump dead on.

The fact is, almost all of the stuff I have written - and that included a lot of the funny stuff - was written in a serious frame of mind. I can remember very few occasions when I sat at the typewriter laughing uncontrollably over some wild and crazy bit of fluff I had just finished churning out. I'm never going to be Reynolds Price of Larry Woiwode - it isn't in me - but that doesn't mean I don't care as deeply about what I do. I have to do what I can do, however - as Nils Lofgren once put it, "I gotta be my dirty self...I wont play no jive." If real - meaning !!SOMETHING THAT COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN!! - is your definition of serious, you are in the wrong place and you should by all means leave the building." (Steven King - A Note on "The Sun Dog")

So guys....LOL......"I gotta by my dirty self....I gotta paint FANTASY"

Tell us about your most rewarding art projects of 2005.

I have been lucky to see my art throughout the world on so many products, books and magazines it makes my heart warm. My art has been used on the natural products as a labels, I had a wonderful solo exhibition here in Sin Traude in Belgium in May 2005 and my art was mentioned in more than 50 different local newspapers and magazines. I was published in book "500 Fairy motifs" by Collins and Brown (which including 15 my paintings), I was also participating in book "Visions of Atlantis" that features many known fantasy artists. You can find my art in many Game companies publications. My art has been featured in several magazines as "Mystic Pop", "Pentacle", "Moon Shadows" and "Dream Weaver" (where I also was cover artist in October this year and who also published my "Essense of Goddess Calendar 2006")

It was truly very special and rewarding year for me.

What would you like your fellow EBSQ artists and our collectors to know about you and/or your work?

I am planning two new solo books for 2006 - One is dedicated for my wonderful Sami character and his adventures (http://www.elfies-world.com/gallery/sami ) and the other one is more about me, my art and lots and lots of tutorials. I am also in process of finishing my Flower Fairies calendar for 2007 and I am preparing special section on my website where I will be giving online lessons. There are so many new things coming I would simply suggest you to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. This way you can follow all the news and publications.

And important message for all who want to be a professional artist....

WORK WORK WORK!!! If you believe being a successful artist is something from the Dire Straights song "money is for nothing and the chicks for free" you will be incredibly disappointed. If you want to further your career, be known and finally be able to support yourself from your art, you should understand that the first couple of years will be spent constantly working - sometimes 11 hours a day. I am pulled in so many directions including self-promotion and the actual creation of my paintings. It all coming down to me (laughing). I am my own manager, my own promotion agent and I am also a painter. I know many artists who try to be influenced by other artists or to even copy successful examples. Sadly they end up losing their own sparkle. Believe that you are wonderful and different and unique.

Big things come in small packages. It is a motto that I have use on my website and something that I always remind to myself.