I was an artist before I was a person.

In my first memory I was at a small table, holding a crayon and trying to draw an airplane. It was me before I was me. I began my existence, as I understand it, already in the act of trying to understand this craft.

That's 40 plus years of learning.

And sure, I've had brief stints in my life when I wasn't doing art to any meaningful degree. But the need to exorcise these obsessions was undeniable.

Early influences like Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends", Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes sparked my curiosity. How did they get such expressive, perfect looking characters, using just these so-called "lines"?

It was 5th grade when I came across Eastman and Laird's TMNT, and it was my best friend (RIP Fred, I love you buddy) introduced me to Spider-Man.

That fascination took over everything. Drawing for hours on end, before, during and after school. Every chance I got to practice my anatomy and line work. Pages and pages filled with arms, or legs, or heads. Homework (when I would actually turn it in) with doodles on the side.

But adulthood and my first child at 21 forced a pause, as the pressure to provide gave no room for such supposed frivolity. And while I did my best to fit into the societal norm of parenthood, I would not successfully deny who I was for long.

I came back to art with a vengeance becoming a fulltime freelance artist, selling abstract art, graphic design, photography, videography, music production, video production, and everything in between. And while I managed to scrape by, it was extremely challenging, and after 12 years of it, I got fully and completely burnt out.

My new wife and my kid we moved to Portland, Oregon for a fresh start. I found on demand food delivery and for the next 4 years I did easy work for instant cash. It was nice, but it wasn't life.

Fast forward to February 2021. I had gotten sick of not doing art so I decided to draw live online for at least 30 min a day, every day, and post the results to social media no matter the result.

I knew I needed to get over my need for my art to be perfect before I show it off. I knew I needed to get consistent and patient for my skills to truly develop. And I knew I needed me back.

The first month I drew tigers every day. It was a subject I was always fascinated by but it wasn't so important to me that I would be upset if it didn't turn out great. Slowly I started getting viewers who would eventually start making requests for different animals. Those requests for different animals eventually lead to someone saying, "Hey, can you draw Venom?"

That starter-pistol-of-a-question fired and I took off like a bat out of hell. 

Since then I've drawn and/or painted almost every day. My skills have grown massively. My audience has bloomed to over 120k Toddlers across my social media network. I'm back to full time art and the future is bright.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm just getting started. I want to see just how good I'm capable of becoming... I would love for you to join me!