HOW I LEARNED TO SEE PEOPLE

I remember being four years old, standing in front of a chalkboard and drawing a face so large it seemed to fill the entire space. It had big eyes, a gaping mouth, and enormous teeth.

It scared me. When my family asked what was wrong, I remember crying, “My drawing is scary!” To me, the face looked like a monster. I had no idea then that faces would eventually become one of the things people would remember me for most.

Years later, as a young art student in college, I found myself drawing my classmates during lectures. I was probably supposed to be paying attention, but instead I was studying faces—capturing a nose here, the shape of a jaw there, the way someone's hair framed their head.

I wasn't trying to make caricatures. I was simply trying to see. The more I drew, the more a style began to emerge: somewhere between portraiture and caricature, using quick, bold lines to capture a person's likeness and personality. One day, I gave one of my drawings to an unsuspecting classmate. In return, I received a hot meal and a cold drink. That little exchange became my first paying gig as a young artist. From there, things started to happen almost accidentally. Friends asked me to draw their friends. Then came drawings from photographs, birthday gifts, anniversaries, student newspapers, flyers, editorial cartoons, and eventually public events. That's where something really clicked. At events, I noticed that people weren't only interested in the finished drawing. They wanted to watch the drawing happen.

People would wait in line. They would look over my shoulder. They'd watch the face emerge, line by line. There was a kind of excitement in it—a little like watching a baker knead dough through a bakery window, except instead of bread, something unexpectedly recognizable was appearing on the page. And I loved the pressure. I would think, I better do a good job.

That feeling eventually became Fast Faces.

No one taught me how to do caricatures. My art education taught me many things—drawing, design, composition, observation, visual communication—but caricature itself was something I discovered through experimentation. My style grew from years of looking, drawing, making mistakes, paying attention, and figuring out what makes one face different from another.

Looking back, I realize that Fast Faces isn't really about drawing fast. It's about seeing fast.

It's about noticing the little things that make someone uniquely themselves—and translating those observations into a few expressive lines. That idea has followed me throughout my career. I've worked in illustration, graphic design, photography, video, filmmaking, and education. I've created things for print, websites, events, classrooms, and audiences of all kinds.

Different tools. Different mediums. Different settings. But underneath all of them is the same impulse: Look closely. Notice something. Make it visible.

That's probably why, after all these years, when people think of my work, they often remember the faces. The little drawings that started as college doodles became a performance, a craft, a business—and eventually, a way of connecting with people.

Your face. My lines. A few minutes.

That's a Fast Face.

And every one is different because every person is.

Two happy customers at De Young Museum during a 'Fast Faces' art workshop in San Francisco.