Meet the Illustrator
Meet my illustrator, Steve Daniels. Steve has done about everything in his career. He’s drawn editorial cartoons for newspapers, painted signs for businesses, created covers for hundreds of books, and painted large wall murals. He’s painted pictures for museums, tiles for kitchens, and framed works on commission. Steve is also an author and has illustrated and published three children’s books. Steve is a licensed diver and an underwater photographer. He tells the story of an amazing underwater adventure in his book, Guardian of the Well.
In the 70s Steve answered a posting from the State of North Carolina. They advertised for an artist to design and implement a museum exhibit for the Marine Science Centers. One requirement for the job was a master’s degree. Three hundred applied; 299 had an MA in their hands. Steve had two large briefcases in his hands filled with his on-the-job experience, no MA, no BS, just heaps of experience. He showed them the displays, murals, and exhibits he’d designed for the Southern Museum of Flight, artist concepts of top secret aircraft for the Air Force, and brochures for the Medical University in Charleston as well as marine life paintings in aquariums, and dioramas for museums. He got the job! Later he visited the White House to present a painting to President George Bush Senior of the plane he flew when he was shot down.
The Aquarium at Roanoke Island, not far from where I now live, needed an exhibit for the discovery of the Monitor. Steve created a map of the wreck site, underwater. His map appears in a book about discovering the Monitor, and the map was used by Jacques Cousteau to do the undersea exploring.
Today’s exhibits are created using very high tech computer-generated images. But in the 80s, the aquariums in North Carolina were enhanced with Steve’s imagination, creativity, and talent, home grown and handmade, state of the art for their time.
I can’t remember how I first met Steve, or what brought us together in the little town of Sapphire, tucked away in the mountains. But our friendship has grown over several years. I once blogged about his wife Carol and her award-winning quilts. Steve illustrated my storybook Amanda and the Lazy Garden Fairy, with light-hearted humor. He also illustrated Beth’s Birds and Beth’s Backyard Friends. Watch for Beth & Night Noises coming this fall. The beautiful illustrations in Spirit the Tiny White Reindeer, are classic Steve Daniels. I don’t remember how we met, but I’m sure glad we did! I, and my readers, are blessed by his work.