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Spotlight on Kristen Stein

Kristen Stein is a contemporary artist from Philadelphia. Her paintings and other artwork are available online and in collections throughout the world, and she works with clients to create custom pieces in various styles and media.

She began creating art several decades ago for friends and family and has been selling her art for about 10 years. She discovered her passion for art while working on her dissertation in economics at the University of Virginia.

Her economics background has been quite helpful in the business side of her art business, yet her creative side is the true driving force. Kristen's artwork spans numerous genres because she draws from her life experiences when creating.

Though she never trained formally in art (she took one class in high school and one in college), creativity obviously runs in her blood. The experiences she gained in those classes fueled her passion to continue to learn and grow as an artist.

What is your inspiration for your latest work?

I'm inspired by just about everything I read, see or hear. In some way, recent events, stories, emotions, etc., influence each new painting. I love nature, trees, birds, gardens and these themes play into a lot of my recent work. I love experimenting with colors, layers, textures and shapes. You can see the combination of these in many of my paintings and styles.

Who has influenced your artistic vision the most, and why?

Friends, family and other artists have all played an integral role in influencing my artistic visions and enthusiasm for "all things art." My parents are both incredibly talented, and I know that they have directly influenced my love for the arts. Some of my earliest artist friends, Veralyn Villanueva, Al Lofsness and Lauren Marems, have all motivated me and encouraged me. I'm thrilled to have their paintings in nearly every room of my house and find them so inspiring.

More recently, I've met several new artists online through various social networks, and I'm enjoying learning how to use the new venues to expand the reach of my art to new audiences. I've also recently approached other artists and photographers to work on collaborative projects. It's a fun way for artists to share their talents and create an image that embodies their various interests or styles. That's how the "Spirit of Autumn" image (with Lyse Marion) came about.

Tell us a little about the different media you work with.

I most often work with acrylics on canvas. I occasionally dabble in pastels and oils. I love working in mixed media and often add gritty, grainy textures to my paint. I've also done paintings using newspaper, paper towels, tissues, string, dried flowers, leaves and more to help build different layers and add dimension to the painting. I sometimes work on wood. I'm in the process of learning silk-screening and hope to "pull" my own prints.

What is your favorite medium?

Acrylic on canvas is probably my most-preferred medium...but like I said above, I love experimenting with different mediums and creating layers and textures.

Your art spans several genres - what is your creative process like? For example, how do you shift gears to create contemporary and modern works one day and then art deco pieces the next?

I love having different styles that I can draw from according to my inspiration. Since I like to consider myself an artist and an illustrator, I feel that I need to show that I am multi-faceted and can "illustrate" ideas as well as capture them in a complete painting. Each style helps shed insight into some part of my personality or background.

My modern landscape paintings, for example, allow me to experiment with color and texture while capturing the beauty of a line of trees, a flock of birds, or a wide open meadow, field, ocean, etc. Many of these pieces are influenced by my time spent in Colorado, California and Spain.

Being a mother of a young child, I love painting the whimsical pet portraits and the enchanted garden paintings for her. My daughter has actually helped "build" a few of my paintings by adding silk flowers to the underpainting. I then include the layer of silk flowers into the final painting by allowing them to become part of the background of the painting. It's great fun to let her help.

My enchanted garden series allows me to capture a world of my imagination where birds, snakes, plants, flowers, trees, butterflies, etc., can be expressed in a wild, whimsical way. They are bold, bright and wonderfully fun to create.

My whimsical pet portraits allow me to capture our furry friends at their best. Some of the paintings depict the fun in the simplest of behavior... the dog or cat nap! Others depict how I believe our pets would like to act when their owners are not around. This is how the "When we are away, the dog will play" series came about. I also greatly enjoy dog agility and have captured many of the great obstacles on canvas.

I've written a couple of children's books and this whimsical style is perfect for creating the illustrations for these stories.

My husband is from Spain, and we share a love for Picasso and cubism. I also adore the old art deco travel posters and advertising designs from the 1930s. From my love of these two styles, I developed my "art deco cubist" style. These paintings are my story-telling and portrait paintings. This style allows me to capture a certain sentiment or tell a story in the painting. I've done a series of jazz paintings in this style, golfing paintings, family portraits, birds and other current events. Paintings influenced by September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and tributes to my grandmothers are among the works in the art deco cubist collection.

What made you decide to expand the functionality of your artwork by applying it to other items such as apparel and home decor?

Last year, I began learning how to move from the traditional form of painting on canvas to digital painting. I started illustrating and sketching designs on paper and then painting them "digitally" via the computer. Since these designs were created as vectors, they can easily be reproduced in a small scale for use on business cards, logos and graphic designs, or enlarged for use as posters, prints or T-shirt graphics, without the loss of resolution. Since I had so many designs created as scalable vectors, I thought I would use them to create various prints and more "useable" forms of art. That's when I introduced the tiles and the art pendants to my inventory.

What is the biggest challenge you've faced in your work?

I think the biggest challenge is getting your name out there and getting noticed. The art market is huge, and I'm taking baby steps but moving forward. I love what I do, and I hope it comes across in everything I paint. The market for art is very sensitive to the current business cycle and when the economy slows, the artists definitely feel the "pinch."

What do you do to relax and unwind?

I enjoy spending time with friends and family. We try to visit our family in Spain at least once a year. We also have family on a small island in Lake Erie, and it's a wonderful place to visit throughout the year and slow down and unwind.

I love being a mother and a wife and a helpful friend, so these other "jobs" keep me grounded. I love crafting, sewing, cooking, reading, writing and being a teacher to my daughter. So, when I'm not painting, I'm usually doing one of these other events.

See Kristen Stein Fine Art at:

http://www.studioartworks.com/
http://kristensteinfineart.etsy.com