Born in Berkeley, California on December 21, 1949, he was raised in a home that had a sweeping view of the San Francisco Bay. This scene kindled his interest in landscape and was one of his earliest drawing subjects. He had his first one man show when he was sixteen.

Steve studied at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and for one year at Hornsey College of Art in London, where he concentrated on sculpture. It was at Santa Cruz, in 1969, that Steve was first introduced to etching. Since he received his BFA from UCSC in 1975, he has focused on creating aquatint etchings of wilderness landscapes, drawn freehand from photographs he takes.

His search for interesting images has taken all over California, the American West, and to remote regions of Finland, Australia, New Zealand, and Nepal. In the summer of 1988 he backpacked the 212-mile John Muir Trail, starting in Yosemite Valley and ending at the summit of Mount Whitney. From this hike, he created a series of seventeen aquatints.

From 1975 to 1979, he worked at Graphic Arts Workshop in San Francisco. For most of the years from 1979 to 1992, he was an artist in residence at Kala Institute in Berkeley, where he taught classes in printmaking and wrote three technical articles about aquatint etching. In 1992 he moved to Petaluma, California, where he continues to create images of the landscapes he loves.

How an Aquatint Etching is Created

Aquatint is a printmaking technique that produces a full tonal range and rich texture. To create an aquatint three things are needed: a shiny copper plate, rosin dust and acid. The rosin dust is dropped and melted onto the plate creating a matrix of small dots, and the plate is submerged in a tray of acid to be etched.

Steve begins by choosing an image from one of the photographs he has taken. He refers to this photograph as he draws the image freehand onto the copper plate. A high quality watercolor brush is used to paint the stop-out material (asphaltum) onto the plate. The areas on the plate that correspond to the lightest areas on the photograph are painted out first. Then the plate is dipped into the acid bath and etched. Next, the areas that correspond to a slightly darker tone on the photograph are painted out, and another dip into the acid bath is done. This process is repeated, usually seven to nine times, until a full tonal range is created. It often takes several weeks to produce a plate.

For multiple color prints a separate plate is drawn for each color. Two to four plates are etched to create the colors on the finished print. Steve does color separations in his head to determine how much of each color is needed on each plate to create the desired color blends. The corresponding areas of each of the plates must be drawn so that they will print in register.

After the etching is completed, the rosin and stop-out is cleaned off of the plates and they are ready to be printed. Etchings are printed intaglio, that is, the ink is held in the etched areas rather than on the un-etched surface. The paste-like ink is spread over the surface of the plate. It is then wiped off by using starched cheese cloth until in only remains in the etched "canyons" in the metal. The inked plate is then placed on the press bed, 100% rag paper is placed over it, and they are run through the press. In the case of multiple plate prints, the plates are printed one after the other. The finished print is pulled off the plate. The cleaning, inking and pulling of the print is done until the desired numbers of prints are finished. This is usually around 250 or less, before the integrity of the plate begins to give way. After the final print is pulled, a sharp stylus is used to mark a large over the surface of the plate, thereby canceling it from any further use.