Tomas Miller, born in 1957 in Des Moines, lost both of his parents by the time he reached age 17. "I had to grow up fast and focused on the outdoors--trapping, hunting, fishing and outdoors everything," he says. He graduated high school with a failing grade in art. He was undeterred. "After that I painted enthusiastically, donating hundreds of original paintings to various conservation organizations for fundraisers and raising many thousands of dollars."
Since then he has gone on to win many artist of the year awards for conservation groups, including Ducks Unlimited and has designed duck stamps, habitat stamps and trout stamps as well. In 2010, he studied under Canadian nature artist Robert Bateman, then completed three paintings for friends before setting his brushes aside. In 2019, he picked them up again, and has been painting ambitiously since.
