⭐️ Skip Sketch Spotlight: Reuben
A Quiet Light in December: Featuring Reuben
As winter settles in and December draws its long, shadowy breath, we’re turning the spotlight toward an artist whose honesty and emotional depth bring a rare warmth to the season. This month, we’re honored to feature an artist who describes his art as: “my ugliest parts leaving me through my pencil,” and whose creations feel like little windows into the private storms and soft recoveries of the human heart.
Reuben’s work is raw, curious, and deeply felt — a blend of emotion-driven imagery, liquid shapes, and the intimate simplicity of mechanical pencil and ink on paper.
Meet the Artist
“When I doodle, my ugliest parts are leaving through my pencil.”
Reuben
In the world of art, Reuben sees himself simply: someone who enjoys creating, especially when it’s for others. When the work is personal, his doodles become a kind of emotional release — a way for the harder, messier feelings to travel outward through the pencil and onto the page.
There is an honesty in that simplicity, and it colors everything he makes.
What’s Inspiring Him Lately
Lately, his imagination has been tugged toward emotion-driven themes — anger, survival, depression — expressed through fluid, liquid shapes. The contrast is striking: heavy feelings made gentle through soft lines and flowing forms.
Mechanical pencil and ink have become Reuben’s go-to companions, grounding him in a tactile, physical connection to the work that leaps off of the canvas.
Reuben’s Creative Ritual
Before he begins, Reuben settles into a ritual that feels part practical, part sacred.
The dogs are brought close and made comfortable. The workspace is set. A familiar soundtrack — a podcast, or the unmistakable grit of Tom Waits, or the dark rhythmic pulse of TOOL — fills the air. Only then does the work begin, once the world around him has softened and steadied, narrowed his focus so that only brushstrokes can express what he’s thinking and feeling.
The Story Behind This Month’s Piece
This month’s featured piece began with an unexpected canvas: a benchtop Reuben was given permission to doodle on. From there, the surface transformed into a small, symbolic portrait gallery — avatars representing meaningful people in his life.
A butterfly for himself.
A dragonfly for his mother-in-law.
A turtle for his wife.
But before the piece, titled Path, could ever become “finished,” his wife claimed it — lifting it off the workspace and hanging it proudly on the wall. A moment of love, pride, and playful theft, all captured in one gesture.
Carrying Creativity Into December
December is a dark month for this month’s artist — one that brings the weight of seasonal depression. And yet, this honesty adds a quiet power to his art. It becomes both a reflection of the season-as well as a way of surviving it.
For Reuben, even his unconscious approach to his creativity is rooted in expression: he carries art as a lantern through the longest nights of the year. And that light tends to reach those also stuck in the storm.
Closing Notes
As we move further into winter, we’re grateful for artists like Reuben who share not just his work, but the dark and tender stories behind it. His art reminds us that creativity isn’t always bright — sometimes it’s the darkness we name, shape, and release that brings the most connection.
If you’d like to see more of Reuben’s process or art, all are welcome on his instagram page: @grumpy.butterfly
If this piece spoke to you, stay tuned for next month’s featured artist — and the stories waiting just beneath the surface of their work.
Stay warm,
The Skip Sketch Studio Team 🩶
