People sometimes ask what a typical day in my studio looks like.
I wish I had a more impressive answer.
I'm not the artist who starts drawing every morning at precisely 8:00, breaks for lunch at noon, answers email from 1:00 to 1:30, and wraps up the day with a neatly checked-off to-do list. If that's your rhythm, I admire it. It's just never been mine.
My mornings are fairly predictable. Breakfast. Coffee. Time with my wife. I check email and look over my to-do list.
After that, the day has a way of becoming... negotiable.
Some mornings I dive straight into an illustration and don't look up for hours. Once I'm locked onto a project, I can become almost oblivious to everything else. Other days, I find myself following an unexpected idea. A reference book leads to another book. A photograph reminds me of a place I'd forgotten. One thought sparks another.
Before long, I've wandered down a rabbit trail.
I've come to think of rabbit trails as curiosity with a purpose. Not every detour leads somewhere worthwhile. Some simply burn an afternoon. But if you never allow yourself to wander, you'll probably never discover the ideas you weren't looking for in the first place.
Productivity experts would probably disagree with me.
They're not entirely wrong.
Rabbit trails can absolutely waste time.
But they've also given me some of my favorite work.
Over the years, I've realized that my creative life doesn't fit neatly into time blocks. Some of my best sketching happens at night while my wife and I are on the couch watching one of our favorite shows. You'll usually find my trusty iPad in my lap. I love sketching digitally. It's fast, it's flexible, and it keeps all those little ideas in one place instead of scattered across scraps of paper.
Portrait sketches are especially suited to those evenings. They're quick, loose, and gestural. By the end of an episode I may have a handful of new faces that never existed an hour earlier.
Sometimes those evenings lead somewhere unexpected.
One night we were watching a cozy mystery set in Italy. Somewhere between the winding streets, little cafés, and vintage scooters, I found myself thinking less about the plot and more about the Vespa. Before long I wasn't just admiring it—I was mentally designing a poster around it.
That rabbit trail eventually became one of my favorite transportation prints.
The same thing happens in conversations.
A phone call with a friend isn't always an interruption. Sometimes it's research disguised as friendship.
An aviation photographer buddy of mine once spent an hour telling stories about old airplanes, the people who fly them, and the personalities of different aircraft. By the end of the conversation, I wasn't just thinking about airplanes anymore. I was thinking about an entire aviation poster series.
Another friend, who now lives in northwest Arkansas but grew up in the southeastern part of the state, was telling me about Arkansas. At one point he laughed and said, "Just skip the southeastern part—it's flat and ugly."
I laughed.
Then I wrote it down.
That single throwaway comment eventually became the line on my Arkansas travel poster.
Those conversations never appeared on my calendar. They were simply rabbit trails that turned into finished artwork.
My wife and I help care for our four-year-old granddaughter a few days each week. Anyone who's spent time with a preschooler knows schedules quickly become suggestions. I've learned not to fight that. There will always be another email to answer. There won't always be another afternoon to read a story, build with blocks, or hear about the newest discovery through the eyes of a four-year-old.
Even my workouts don't happen at exactly the same time every day. Most are in the morning. Sometimes they're in the afternoon. The point isn't the hour on the clock. The point is that they happen.
That probably sums up how I work.
That doesn't mean I'm aimless.
Quite the opposite.
I'm very goal-oriented. Client deadlines are met. Posters make it into the shop. New ideas become finished illustrations. The work gets done.
I just don't always get there in a straight line.
For years I wondered if I should become one of those perfectly structured creative people. Maybe I'd produce more. Maybe I'd feel more organized. Maybe I'd finally discover the magical system everyone seems to be selling.
I've stopped chasing that.
Instead, I've learned to trust the way God wired me.
Creativity doesn't only happen at my drawing table. It shows up during conversations, while watching television with my wife, in late-night sketches on my iPad, during family time, while reading, and yes... on the occasional rabbit trail.
I've found that a creative life isn't built by controlling every hour.
It's built by paying attention.
Paying attention to people.
Paying attention to ideas.
Paying attention to the unexpected connections that appear when you're curious enough to notice them.
Somewhere between coffee with my wife, an unexpected phone call, a sketch during our favorite show, time with my granddaughter, and a handful of rabbit trails, another poster usually finds its way into the world.
And for me, that's a pretty good day in the studio.
I'm a Texas-based illustrator and designer creating vintage-inspired poster art that blends strong graphic design with storytelling. My work ranges from wildlife and travel posters to aviation art, all created to bring a little character to modern walls.
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