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NEW YORK CITY — For one New York City transplant, his early years of storytelling through art lead to a career.
Carter Thompson always preferred clay, Legos and crayons as a kid. When he grew up, he classified himself as a “doodler,” intent on creating.
“My mom put me in some art classes for a short time that one of her friends taught in Tooele, and I made an oil painting of a cat, but I would say that most of my technique is self-taught,” Thompson said.
In high school, he and his best friend wrote and illustrated stories about everyday life, which lead to Thompson becoming involved in theater. He was drawn to the way it combined storytelling and art. At BYU, he studied scenic design for theater. In all of his art and design classes, Thompson said he enjoyed drawing other humans the most.
“I mostly draw people rather than landscapes or anything because I love trying to reveal the human condition,” Thompson said. “People fascinate me, and I love meeting new people or just watching people.”
Now, Thompson paints scenes inspired by the way people interact.
“I tend to think of it as humor with a provocative aftertaste,” Thompson said.
Currently a resident of New York City, Thompson said he enjoys planting himself and his sketchbook in a given location and drawing the people who walk by. Now that he is a full-time artist, doing commissions and painting sets, Thompson sees the value in the times when he struggled.
“Networking in those situations is really how I started getting work from my art and design — the people I was meeting or working alongside — and then it just started to snowball,” Thompson said.
As a storyteller, Thompson said he is endlessly inspired by the books he reads, especially Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens.
“I love authors that can paint a picture with their words,” Thompson said. “I am a firm believer that creativity breeds creativity and art inspires art. Good books or plays really move me to create. Sharing things and reinterpreting things seems like the whole point of art to me.”
As an artist, Thompson said he had a mental hurdle to jump to accept digital art. Now, it is his preferred medium. After experimenting with watercolor and colored pencil, which he prefers, and charcoal and chalk, which he doesn’t prefer, he found digital to be the cleanest and the most portable. 
Carter Thompson
“I used to cringe anytime I heard the phrase ‘digital art,’” Thompson said. “But now I really love the options it gives me and the challenges it creates. In a way, it started out of necessity. As a young artist living in New York, trying to pay rent, it quickly became very expensive to be fully stocked with art supplies, not to mention finding the space for everything when you are crammed into a small apartment. But with a digital medium I have a fully stocked studio that can fit in my backpack.”
Since he works on the go, in cafes and hotel lobbies, Thompson has the option for making his workspace an inspiring place.
“Anywhere historical with interesting ambience,” Thompson said. “Architecture and history really feed me creatively, so I tend to gravitate toward these grand, legendary public spaces from a bygone era.”
Amanda is a writer and pop culture fanatic who studied journalism at BYU. She has written for a candy store, a US Senator, Deseret News, an art museum, Entertainment Weekly magazine, a beauty company, KSL and several artists and musicians. Find her on Twitter @amandataylor88.
