BRISTOL, Va. – In the classroom, Steven Shortridge encourages his students to establish goals and a plan to reach them.

As an aspiring artist and illustrator, he’s taking some of his own advice.

The professor of computer graphics and applications at National Business College divides his days between teaching and his lifelong passion for painting.

"For me, it’s a balancing act with my obligations for school – wanting to teach and wanting to be an artist," he said. "I teach day classes from 8:30 until 1:30 and then go home and work on my art. I try to be disciplined and work on it eight hours a day.

"I hope within two years to see my work out there locally, and I hope to be published," he said, adding that he also has created characters for children and written stories to accompany those paintings.

He recently joined the Arts Depot in Abingdon and hopes to host a show of his work next year. Much of that work is done with watercolor, pencil and gauche – a thicker type of paint that provides more vibrant colors.

Shortridge’s latest project is to paint landmark buildings like the Barter Theatre, the Martha Washington Inn and the Washington County Courthouse. He hopes to make and market prints of those paintings.

Shortridge, who lives in Glade Spring, said his interest in art began 25 years ago while in elementary school.

"When I was 12, I started drawing animals and people," he said. "When I reached ninth grade, I joined the art club at Honaker High School.

"The art is mostly because of my father. He was always very supportive, and I do it to honor his memory."

Two events – having some of his work published in a local arts calendar and winning a county art show while in high school – helped inspire him.

During college, at Virginia Intermont College and East Tennessee State University, professors helped nurture his interest and taught him lessons about how to succeed, he said.

After earning his master’s degree in graphic design from ETSU, Shortridge’s first attempt doing animation and illustration was a failure.

"I moved to Nashville to do freelance computer animation with a friend of mine, but that didn’t work out like we planned it," he said. "We did get one project on a PBS program. It was 28 seconds long, and it took two people two months to create."

He moved back home last year and began teaching and pursuing his new goals as an artist.

"Moving back here, I realized just how special this area is, with our Appalachian values and culture," Shortridge said. "I want to try to capture some of that in my work."

dmcgee@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2532