The Black Tree
This was a piece done for a Day of the Dead show for Boomerang Gallery in my hometown of Petaluma. I've been trying something with these black tree shapes which I'm not quite done exploring.

I Hunger
This was done for the first I AM 8-BIT show at Gallery 1988 in L.A. a couple of years ago. The show is reinterpretations of classic arcade themes and this is a baby portrait of my all-time favorite video game character, Sinistar.


Vice
Another Day of the Dead self portrait with some candy-like colors. I was trying to make the light look edible.

I started my career as an illustrator in the San Francisco bay area. Painting has always been part of the art that I've done all my life. Like any kid, I    drew with whatever was available. At some point I discovered oils and acrylics. One of my first paintings was a portrait of Mortimer Snerd copied from a tiny drawing in the background of a Mort Drucker panel in Mad Magazine.

As a kid, my influences were the cartoonists in Mad Magazine and National Lampoon. In school it was classic illustrators like NC Wyeth, Norman Rockwell. Leyendecker. I loved the solid volumes and rich palettes they used. A couple of contemporary artists I enjoy are Dave Cooper and Glenn Barr.

I'm also inspired by junk. My work areas are always filled with old toys, marionettes, ventriloquist dummies.   I like the designs of advertising mascots and animation characters especially when I have no clue who they are. I'm influenced by objects that seem to have a very obscure tale to tell.

I always have a number of concepts rattling around in my head. I scratch them down on small pads and keep the backlog of ideas in a flat file drawer and reach in when I have the chance or excuse to paint something. Sometimes the idea is just about a certain kind of figure or character. Sometimes it starts with a group of colors I want to put together.

I tend to paint fairly small, usually on illustration board or heavy Bristol. I sketch the composition with a soft pencil, about a 4 or 6B. I find that I have a better result if I don't fuss over the drawing too much. I mainly hope to get the broad shapes in place. If I'm working on a white surface, my palette starts with Ultramarine and Raw Umber. I mix those together and wash over the sketch, shifting between warm and cool. I lay the background tone in a wash with a wide brush. I chop in some texture and build the colors up in layers. The lighter colors are laid in thicker and I try to allow the shape of the stroke to be present.   I like seeing the active brush strokes in the finished painting.

(Though Steve does not yet have a web site for his artwork, his Sam and Max games can be found at Telltale Games .)

Artwork for this article is the property of Steve Purcell.