Craig Stephens

podcast

Apr 19

Written By Carl Olson

Drawn to Form

Episode 69

Episode length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Also available on:
Apple Podcasts
Amazon Music
Spotify
YouTube

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 small painting on nearly a daily basis since 2006. When asked why he paints French fries, toy dinosaurs, avocados, or dead astronauts on old paint can lids, he says: “I started to realize that painting could be the whole idea. What you paint doesn’t really matter.” Thus, he paints whatever is at hand - not because of the object itself, but rather, because he is Drawn to Form.