BeforeYouDraw was built by an artist who learned to see the hard way.

Most drawing tools are built by software founders who decided art is a market. BeforeYouDraw was built by a charcoal portrait artist who has spent five years working out, by hand and on paper, what beginners actually need.

The founder

Jeffrey Tokarz is a charcoal portrait artist based in Fairport, New York. He works in impressionist realism, drawing inspiration from Carl Bloch, Norman Rockwell, and John Singer Sargent. He has been taking commissions seriously since 2020 and shows work through Railroad Street Artworks, a cooperative gallery in Fairport, where he serves as executive director and a board member. He is also active in the Rochester Art Club community.

Before working full-time as an artist, Jeffrey ran an executive search consulting practice. The transition gave him a particular view of the problem BeforeYouDraw solves: he learned to draw as an adult, on his own, without formal art-school training. Every gap he hit, every misunderstanding he had to correct, every shortcut he wished someone had shown him — those experiences are the curriculum embedded in the product.

Why this product exists

Every artist who learns to draw a portrait eventually realizes the same thing: the hard part is not making marks. The hard part is seeing. Beginners draw what they think is in the photo, not what is actually there. They miss the shadow shapes, they break proportion before they start, they treat every edge as equally important.

Trained artists learn to see through years of repetition, study, and feedback. Most people who try to learn drawing on their own quit before they get there. BeforeYouDraw is built to compress that learning curve — to make the seeing skill accessible without requiring four years of art school or thousands of hours of solo practice.

The philosophy

• Restraint over abundance.
  One strong choice beats five competing ones. White space is a feature.
• Craft over polish.
  The brand should feel hand-made and considered — closer to a museum catalog than a tech product.
• Authority through quietness.
  The product, the founder, and the work do the convincing.
• Real method underneath.
  Drawing is learnable, but only because there is a system — not because it’s easy.

The studio

BeforeYouDraw is one of several products built under the Tokarz Studio portfolio. Other products include Jeff Tokarz Studio (original commissioned charcoal portraits), PrintsOnYourWall (an AR art visualization platform for artists), Typortrait (a typographic portrait generator), LineForge (an AI line art generator for KDP publishers), and NotanPro (a composition analysis tool).

Get in touch

For press, partnerships, or general inquiries, email hello@beforeyoudraw.com or reach out through Jeff Tokarz Studio.