About

Hi, I'm Nikki. I draw plants, bugs, birds and naked ladies. Sometimes all in the same place.

I make bold, graphic artwork inspired by the beautiful weirdness of nature. The kind of stuff that makes your walls feel alive instead of like a dentist's waiting room. Life's too short for beige walls, and I take that personally!

The Fine Art Foundation

How I learned to draw before the internet existed

I studied drawing and painting in college – including spending six months at art school in Italy because apparently I needed to be that pretentious about my creative education.

I then went to grad school in Savannah and studied fiber arts, which is fancy talk for learning surface design and other ways of working with textiles, including a body of mixed media fabric collages that almost approaches quilting.

My first "real" job was designing t-shirts for conservation groups like National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy and Ducks Unlimited. Nature meets design. It was perfect and it helped shape the bold graphic style I still used today.

An Accidental Career

How Learning HTML Changed Changed Everything

Somewhere in the mid-90s, I needed a portfolio to share my art and design work – and the internet was just being born. So I taught myself HTML instead of waiting around for someone else to figure it out for me. That one decision changed everything.

That skill – and the exactly one website I built – landed me a 30-day temp job at IBM doing basic HTML. Thirty days turned into an accidental 10-year career as a Creative Director with IBM.

I led massive interactive projects, built digital experiences for Fortune 500 companies and sharpened my design brain every single day. Corporate life taught me to think strategically, communicate clearly and deliver work at a stupidly high professional level.

It also taught me that if I didn't carve out space for my own art, no one else was going to do it for me.

The Slow Escape

Ten years into cubicles and conference rooms, I realized the only art I was making was doodles in the margins of legal pads during meetings. Not exactly why I went to art school in Italy!

So I moved from Atlanta to Paducah through their artist relocation program. A small river town in Kentucky that literally paid artists to move there and make things weird. I kept working remotely for IBM because I wasn't quite ready to burn it all down, but remote work taught me something crucial: if you can work from Paducah, you can work from anywhere.

I spent three months in Mazatlán, Mexico, and somewhere between the ocean and the freedom and the not being in a conference room, I remembered that I actually knew how to make art. I'd just been too busy making everyone else's vision come to life.

Eventually I walked away from corporate completely and rebuilt my life as a self-employed artist and designer. Best decision I ever made.

My Art

Bold Lines, Bright Colors, Zero Apologies

My work blends fine art training with a graphic designer's brain and an obsessive love of pattern and detail. I pull inspiration from nature, movement and the wild organic lines and shapes I find everywhere I travel.

Strong ink lines. Bold, unapologetic color. Nothing precious, just confident marks that kow what they're doing. My style is graphic but warm, a little wild, and definitely wouldn't pass a corporate brand review.

I draw flowers and insects, bold botanicals and figurative work, often mixing them all together because why should plants and nude female figures stay in separate categories?

Skoolie Life

You Bought a What??!!

These days I live full-time in a converted school bus I named the Doodlebus, traveling the country with my dog Rocket and cat Pixel. Mountains, beaches, forests, desert campsites and the occasional Walmart or Cracker Barrel parking lot – everywhere becomes a studio.

My bus is my middle finger to the idea that creativity needs an address or that you have to choose between adventure and a career. It's also endless inspiration. My art is shaped by the colors, textures and stories I collect along the way – each piece carries a bit of the place I created it.

I just want to draw pretty pictures

Why I Make this Stuff

Because beauty matters. Because your walls deserve better than mass-produced hotel art. Because there's something quietly radical about filling your space with things that feel alive.

I create what grows wild, which feels fitting considering I no longer have roots myself.

If my work makes your space feel brighter, bolder, or just more you, then I've done exactly what I set out to do.

Want to Follow the Adventure?

I share new work, behind-the-scenes sketches and occasional bus life chaos in my emails. If you like art with personality, a life lived outside the lines, and the kind of creative journey that doesn't follow a roadmap, you'll fit right in.

Making the world brighter one bold print at a time