My name is Joel Hensley. I was born and raised in La Harpe, Illinois. I've been an artist ever since I could pick up a pencil. However, for most of my life, I haven't taken art seriously, treating it as a means to an end or outright neglecting it. I gravitated toward art in elementary school and chose it over music in middle and high school. I even took a correspondence course, which gave me credits for college. I took a couple of classes in college, but never saw art as a feasible path in life, so it was just a hobby. In 2006, I moved to West Des Moines, where I have lived since. In 2020, after about a nine year art hiatus, my social life and ministries were basically shut down, so with all the free time I had, I decided to take up art again. I made some drawings, showed a few friends, who showed some of their friends, and before I knew it, people were asking me if I was selling my drawings and how much they were. So, I decided to turn my hobby into something that would pay for itself. It has since turned into a kind of business. My mediums of choice are pencil, oil based colored pencil, and oil pastel. In my life, I have drawn all kinds of subjects, but in the last few years, I've focused primarily on birds.
