Craig Stephens - Drawn to Form

Craig Stephens - Drawn to Form

From Artful Painter by Carl Olson

April 20, 2022 · 1h 18m · Episode 69

About this episode

Carl Olson interviews artist Craig Stephens about his journey in painting everyday objects and his new book on oil painting.

Craig Stephens is an artist who delights in painting everyday things. I started following Craig after a chancing upon his Instagram account. I was instantly drawn to his small oil paintings of french fries, toy dinosaurs, peanut butter sandwiches, sneakers, hamburgers, and other everyday objects. I knew this was a painter I wanted to talk with! Craig Stephens was born in Sacramento, California in 1963. He received his B.A. in art studio in 1993. During his undergraduate years, he had the privilege of taking classes from Gary Pruner, Roy DeForest, David Hollowell, and Wayne Thiebaud. He began teaching high school art classes in 1996. I'm pretty sure that in high school I would have loved having Coach Stephens as my art teacher! Craig spent over twenty years teaching high school kids, most of whom had never held a paintbrush intending to paint something realistically. Naturally, they would wonder what to do. This got him started on thinking about what he does when he paints. The result? A new book titled: The Beginner's Guide to Oil Painting: Simple Still Life Projects to Help You Master the Basics . Inspired by artist Duane Kiser's painting-a-day practice, Craig has completed a…

People in this episode

Guest: Craig Stephens

Topics covered

  • oil painting
  • art education
  • everyday objects

Keywords

  • art
  • painting
  • still life
  • teaching

Mentioned in this episode

Products: French fries, The Beginner's Guide to Oil Painting

Books & works: The Beginner's Guide to Oil Painting

Places: Sacramento, California

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