Artist spotlight - steven mcgee

Origin of Art 
Steven McGee is a long time artist at Artist First studio. He’s dedicated to his practice of art and the community of friends he’s made there. He spends most weekdays in the studio. Steven’s art is a combination of drawing and painting characters, often inspired by cartoons and video games. 

Two cartoon characters stand next to each other. The main on the left has green hair, a purple jacket and a smirk on his face. The women on the left has multi colored hair and what looks like a cheerleader uniform. She has very little facial expression.

he deeper side to these characters are represented by details in their clothing, accessories, and facial expression ( or lack thereof). Steven doesn’t just create an image he creates a story. Each character has its own personality, hopes, dreams, fears, and outlook on life. 
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Steven’s been drawing characters for as long as he can remember. He doesn’t know when he became interested in art because it’s just always been so much a part of his life. Aside from a cousin who paints realism, Steven didn’t grow up with anyone else close to him interested in the arts. As a child he constantly drew stick figures, which developed into more human like images as he became interested in cartoons and video games. Prior to joining Artist First studio, Steven had been focused on creating images of masks which he now incorporates into the drawings he makes today.

A woman in a red hat and a red shirt tilts her head to the side and appears perplexed.

A woman with light red hair, crossed eyebrows and blood dripping down one side of her face looks out of the drawing. Her mouth is covered in red tape that says “ get out” and her blue shirt reads “ Fear Me”

The ProcessSteven gets inspired for a character while he’s playing video games or watching a movie . When he’s settled on an idea, he takes a mental note of it and saves it until he gets to the studio. He never writes anything down to remember, but is certain about his process and doesn’t have any concern that he could change his mind or forget before arriving at Artists First. 
Steven focuses on both drawing and painting. All of work ends up with vibrant colors and thin deliberate lines or strokes of coverage. His style contains a unique, repetitive but yet evolutionary style of mark making.

A Simple line drawing of a mask

When Steven is drawing, he’s focused on ways to represent the style and mannerisms of the character in his head. He thinks about the type of clothes the character will wear, the positions of their body as well as tattoos, accessories and of course various forms of masks! ​

pastel colored painting of a man in a multi colored mask. The man’s clothing is decorated and his face is quite blank.

Steven likes sharing his art and would love for it to go up in Coffee shops and restaurants. So far, he’s sold several of his drawings and enjoys being involved with art shows through Artist First. ​

A close up drawing showing Steven’s use of line work. As he uses a marker he takes careful note of the direction each line is pointed in as he colors in the images in patchwork like chunks which can be noticed only with careful attention to detail of the drawing.

A painting of a man wearing an ancient looking mask. The background of the painting is hot pink and the man’s clothing and mask are decorated boldly in the primary colors.

Artist Stats
Favorite color combination: blue, red & orange Favorite things to draw: people, colorful shapes and design Inspiration: cartoons and video games, especially Dragon Ball Z

simple colored pencil drawing of a man with a bright red blindfold.

drawing of a man in an orange sweatshirt and a mouth covered in tape that says“fight.” The words “love” and “peace” are written inside the pupils.

A drawing of a troubled looking man again wearing an orange sweatshirt. Surrounding the figure there are the following phrases “ The cops hate me," “I can’t live," “what did I do.”

A line drawing of the same cyborg character with a more detailed torso that appears to have another face on the chest.

Exciting Fun Fact: “I’m a nice person and I like to have friends”, Steven has many friends that he draws and collaborates with at Artist First

A framed drawing on the wall of a man with a neatly trimmed beard and a multi colored earth toned bare for a hat. The man is smiling and squinting his eyes at the same time.

A framed drawing of a pastel colored mask. The background of the image is bright orange and hot pink stripes that give the green components of the mask lots of dimension.