[2] He was awarded a scholarship to the adult school of the Corcoran Academy of Fine Art in Washington, D.C., which he attended from 1938 until 1945,[1][3] when, immediately after his eighteenth birthday, Stevenson enlisted in the United States Navy.
[1][3][4] Stevenson's early jobs included church window design at the Paine-Speyers stained glass company, work as an attendant and art therapist in a mental hospital, and as an advertising artist for several department stores.
[1][4] Examples of Stevenson's artwork from this period include Charles Marchant Stevenson: Self Portrait (1960) and The Goat Lady's House(1960), a painting of Lyford House, Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary., built in the 1870s, now a Registered Historical Landmark, part of the Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary and open to the public.
[4][5] Of his radical change in location and lifestyle, Stevenson said, "Years ago a fortune teller told me that I had a chance to remake my entire life and I said, 'What I'd really like is to find someplace like Carmel or Monterey was when all the artists and writers were there,' and she said, 'Mendocino!'"
[13] In 1989, Stevenson invited young Mendocino artist Matt Leach first to be his apprentice, then to work with him as a partner; they formed Stevenson/Leach Studios.
Although Stevenson always painted portraits, in the early 1970s he became more selective in accepting commissions and began to focus on other genres; his interests were wide and most are reflected in his subject matter.
Leonardo's line drawings of the five Platonic solids illustrate Luca Pacioli's book La Divina Proportione (1509).
In a rare foray into sculpture, Stevenson designed the altar cross for the children's chapel at the Piedmont Community Church.
Lately I've Been Thinking (1990), one of the Mendocino Malady series by Bobby Markels, is illustrated on the cover and throughout the text with Stevenson's line drawings of the author.
[31] Stevenson's painting The Hee Ancestor Landing on the Headlands appears on the cover of the Kelley House Museum publication Chinese of the Mendocino Coast, by Dorothy Bear and David Houghton.