It wasn’t until I stopped just looking and started truly seeing that things clicked. I picked up an old insect field guide at a used bookstore, and that was my lightbulb moment. The secret wasn’t some ...

I spent my early career in a slick design office. You know the type—fancy chairs that cost more than my first car, professional ergonomic checks, the whole nine yards. So when I went solo and started ...

A lot of folks start out with simple, cartoony mushrooms, and there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s a great way to begin. But if you want to truly capture their unique character, you have to learn to ...

I’ve spent more hours than I can count on the water, from chilly northern coasts to the warm, clear bays of the tropics. My mission was always the same: to sketch whales. Not the simple, bathtub-toy ...

I remember a client calling me in a total panic once. She’d been invited to a garden tea party and was absolutely convinced she needed some kind of historical costume. We ended up finding a gorgeous ...

My first real attempt? A complete disaster. I just drew what I thought I saw: a big, lumpy gray blob with a tube for a nose. The result was flat and lifeless, like a sad balloon animal. It taught me ...

That failure taught me the most important lesson of all: to draw a cactus well, you have to understand it first. It’s not about just copying lines; it’s about figuring out how it grows, how it stores ...

Guys come into my shop all the time with photos of musicians and actors, wanting that same effortless, cool vibe. Here’s a little secret, though: getting that look right is a lot more complex than ...

I learned the ropes in a coastal town where the sound of gulls was the soundtrack to the buzz of my first machine. My mentor, a true old-school artist who’d tattooed countless sailors back in the day, ...

But here’s the thing: choosing your nails for a wedding isn’t just about picking a pretty color you saw online. It’s about the whole vibe. What’s the venue like? Is it a fancy black-tie affair or a ...

For years now, I’ve worked as a coach, and my world revolves around helping people navigate the wild, confusing, and absolutely critical decades of their twenties and thirties. It’s a time packed with ...

I’ve been slinging ink for over fifteen years, and in that time, I’ve seen styles come and go and come right back around again. One of the most misunderstood, by far, is the “ignorant” style. Honestly ...