We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tyler Wolf. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tyler below.

Tyler, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Being happy as a creative is ongoing and dynamic. There are times that I feel like things are going smoothly, I hit a stride and I feel very fulfilled. But I would say that often I don’t feel happy as a creative. There’s a lot of frustrating aspects to trying to make a living as an artist. I think about having a regular job every day. And what it would be like to have that steady income. I am very blessed and have a very supportive family. But it gets hard to feel happy when my client list is very small at the moment.

Tyler, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up, I was the kid that knew how to draw and drew all the time. My friends always had requests of different things they wanted me to draw for them. If I didn’t have any requests, I would do my own drawings, from crazy monsters to stick figure flip motion animations in the corners of my school books.

I didn’t exactly know what part of the art world I was going to end up in until I was attending my local community college. I took every art class I could get into while earning my Associates degree. I didn’t think I wanted to make art for galleries, I wanted to see my work out in the world, so after I returned home from a church mission, I began looking into illustration. Part of what drew me into being an illustrator was my influences. Great artists like JC Lyndecker, Rockwell, Alphonse Mucha, William Stout, and James Gurney. These were artists who not only made incredible art, but shaped popular culture. Mucha not only made incredible paintings to be hung on walls, he created advertising, silverware designs, and even the currency for his country! James Gurney’s Dinotopia filled me with wonder. One of my professors told us that illustration solves problems. And that’s what I hope to do for my clients.

I’m a little different from a lot of other artists, I hated color growing up. Until a painting class when I was 17 at community college, I would shun working in color as much as possible. Charcoal, ink, and graphite were my mediums of choice. In college, I learned to use paint and color to a point where I enjoy them now, but my painted work still carries a bit of my love of drawing. I try to use paint as I would a charcoal stick or pencil.

My love of black and white is highly influencal to my client work for the last several years. I have been seeking out clients for laser engraving designs. It’s very exciting to figure out how to best tell a story in only black and white and in one or two images (front and back of a coin). Once the design is drawn, I need to vectorize it and export it in fairly rigid formats. It’s always an exciting challenge to see how far I can push what a laser can engrave!

Something new that I have been dabbling with is sculptural pocket art. I have made a few coins that I have had cast in bronze, a bottle opener/multi-tool inspired by a rhinoceros beetle, and a couple of lanyard beads. I try and keep things varied and interesting. If you follow me on Instagram, you are likely to encounter skulls, monsters and octopus.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

There are a few times I have had to pivot in my life. The are two instances that were the most drastic.

After graduating, I began working retail at a frame shop, then another shop, and then at a greeting card company. I was attempting to build my illustration career on the side, but it was very hard. I quite working for the greeting card company and tried being an artist for a bit, but after a few months, I needed to be back in a regular job. I stayed there for 2 years until I couldn’t stand working there anymore and the first and only time in my life I was fired! I didn’t know what to do, I had never quite had the rug pulled out from under like that before. Then a few months later, I was babysitting my sister’s children and was the first to find out my niece had been killed in a tractor accident. It shattered my family’s world. I couldn’t go back to a regular job after that. So I focused on my art. That was my first major pivot.

A couple of years later, my wife became pregnant after 6 years of trying and many set backs. Just as she was nearing the end of her pregnancy, literally two weeks away, we were hit with a devastating blow. She had breast cancer. She was barely over 30 and had a tumor the size of an orange I’m her breast. We were told she had cancer and the next day they induced her and my son was born. I didn’t sleep for 30 hours. I held my newborn son and wept through that first night. I didn’t know if my wife would be around to help rise him. I didn’t know how I would carry on. Our world had changed in so many ways. A new baby is a challenge enough, but dealing with an aggressive tumor added a whole different layer to that.

For the next 18 months, we focused on caring for our baby and going to treatments and doctor appointments. Without the help of my parents, my in-laws, my neighbors and church members, siblings and friends, I don’t know what or where we would have ended up. I am a religious person and we felt the hand of a loving God, guiding and helping us through the efforts of so many people.

My art screeched to a stop. I barely drew for 8 months. I had to become not only a new dad but a new ‘mom’ as well. My wife was so sick and weak from chemotherapy, she couldn’t lift our baby for 6 months. I changed almost every dirty diaper for a year straight, ran every errand, and did all the feedings. I had to so my wife could focus on survival. After about 18 months, I began painting again, there was a large commission I had started just before it all happened and I needed to finish it.

I bought an iPad to start working digitally more while watching our son and taking my wife to appointments etc. Now I do almost all my work on my iPad using Procreate. I never thought I would transition to being almost completely digital.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Looking back, I wish I had taken more classes using Adobe Illustrator and graphic design. There are many jobs where I need to vectorize what I am working on and I am not as fast as I wish I could be.

The next thing I wish I would have learned when it was just starting to take off is 3D modeling. Learning Blender is on my to-do list. The amount of amazing things you can create is astounding! I love seeing what people are creating.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thetylerwolf.com
• Instagram: @_the.tyler.wolf_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TylerWolfDesigns?mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Twitter: @theTylerWolf
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@tylerwolf1281