[1][2] After graduation, Atkins worked at Brigden's commercial art firm, where he met Bertram Brooker and Charles Comfort.
Other teaching positions he held included the appointments at the University of Toronto, Central Technical School and elsewhere.
He recorded day and night scenes of the activity in the Toronto Shipbuilding Company in a painting and 24 drawings he made in 1942.
In 1945, he moved to Birmingham, Michigan where he worked as an illustrator and designer for the Ford Motor Company until he retired.
[7] In 1987, the Art Gallery of Windsor organized the circulating exhibition Caven Atkins : the Winnipeg years curated by Ted Fraser.