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Artwork

Each image may be purchased as a canvas print, framed print, metal print, and more! Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

About Steve Carpentier

It was at an early age (13 to be exact) I knew I wanted to create art. I was in choir in middle school and high school, I took an art class, and I was writing plays. I continued to be inspired by song, theatre and drawing through out most of my high school career. By my senior year after performing with my classmates in Hello, Dolly I knew I what I wanted to do as a career. I was going to be a performer and theatre artist.

But in the back of my mind, it was that art class in eighth grade that kept popping up. I loved to draw, I loved to create pictures in perspective and landscapes and odd doodles. One thing I was sure of though, I wasn't very good at reproducing the human form from memory. So, in college at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, I took a drawing class. My drawings of the nude male body, while crude, did have some interesting shading to them. I never completed the semester in that class, but I did continue to develop some interesting shading techniques and today I can draw a pretty good arm if I have to.

As time went on and my college days waned I began to develop a love for playwriting and creating worlds for plays (set design) and how they would be lit (lighting design). I also developed a strong sense of spirituality, at one point I contemplated become a priest or minister. That was not to be as, as I discovered in myself to many conflicting doubts and beliefs that organized religion wanted to force upon me in order to spread their way of life.

Instead, I continued on my path of the theatre artist. Auditioning for plays, designing lights and sets, until I met my first wife and we both decided to continue our education in Radio Broadcasting. Radio would be my life for twenty plus years during which time we raised to of the most beautiful children in near poverty. How my children, Malia and Sean, never needed therapy after leaving the nest I'll never know. But, they didn't or at least they have never revealed to me that they have. From my daughter, I now have to of the most beautiful and wonderful granddaughters. But I digress.

After divorcing my first wife, marrying my second, my son turning twelve and finding a love and passion for the theatre that I once had I went back to my first love again, The Theatre. It was upon the death of my mother in 2004, that I decided that radio, just wasn't working out for me. Having a degree in Theatre, I decided after talking to a friend of mine who was also a radio personality and professor at a night school teaching broadcasting, that I to would like to teach. And so, began my second career.

With the encouragement and support of my second wife, I went back to night school to get my teaching certificate. Not having good enough grades in pursuing my BA to make it a master's degree in education, I settled for alternative certification. It was in 2005 that I began my teaching career in Klein ISD. After a tremulous first year in which I wasn't asked back for a second year, I still full of passion and desire to teach theatre to high school students, began my career in Fort Bend ISD where I have been ever since. It was during my third year of teaching, that the University of Houston began their wonderful and highly recommended Master's of Theatre Education program. Having spent, two years of teaching theatre without a clue, I decided that if I was going to teach theatre, I had better learn how to teach theatre. So, I applied and was accepted into the first class of the program, completing it over three summers to earn my Master's in Theatre Education. Yeah, me.

And here I am now. Older, wiser, full of passion for the performing arts, and passing that passion onto the next generation. I love what I do, but at the same time, I needed something more. Something that I could use to teach my students how to draw. Because, I have become a Director, Set Designer, and Lighting Designer I needed to be able to show my students through technology how to present ideas. The answer to that was my wife's Christmas gift in 2019. An iPad Pro! I quickly downloaded as many different art apps as possible, from Adobe Illustrator to Art Set. Finally, I came upon Procreate for iPad. With it's many brush sets, tutorials I was easily able to create scenes and sets with proper shading. It was easy to show off ideas to my students.

Then came the great pandemic.

Like everyone else, life came to a complete halt and 180 degree turn. Normal went to a new normal. Teaching went from F2F to online. Live theatre dried up and virtual. Soon, it became very clear, I needed an outlet for my creative impulses. It was then, about four weeks into the isolation, that memory of my eighth grade love for drawing and my college art class came storming back. I had an iPad, I had an apple pencil, I had a love for creating worlds and so I began.

Portraits at first. The first was for my Aunt Katherine, it was a surprise birthday gift. She would be turning 90 this year. I thought her birthday was in March, turns out it wasn't until late December. I recreated a picture of her with my dad and grandparents.

Seeing and hearing the joy in my Aunt's response prompted me to do more for friends and relatives. Portraits from pictures was born. Nine months later now, my art has evolved. I no longer focus on portraits and the human form. I draw and create from memories of my past, using what I know to me be my truths of the world and the human condition. I draw, what I am feeling that day, whether it be from my spiritual journey, new colors I am fascinated with, new brushes I have downloaded into Procreate or just from my heart. Each picture, is a reflection of myself as an artist looking for truth and an identity. I doodle and see what comes of it as in my abstract work. I explore the color purple as in many of my nightscape pictures. I recreate from photos of pets. I find new ways to express the human form through cartoon characters and models. Each picture is a culmination of 60 turns around the great fireball in the sky as an expression of what I have learned, what fascinates me about the world around us, and where I believe we should go.

I have no "style" that I imagine, although you may find one in all the work. I use mostly charcoal brushes in Procreate as I find it so beautiful a medium. However, I am not done exploring and learning new techniques for creating and will continue to pursue this new found passion and present to you the works of "drawingsbySteveC."