I first met Alena Niehaus on her search for free food.
The 26-year-old artist caught my attention through a video where she asked Dallas businesses if they’d exchange their fare for a drawing of their building. Some places said no, but some said yes, and the adage “Closed mouths don’t get fed” proved true again.
Being an artist in Dallas—shoot, anywhere—takes hustle and a little bravery. Niehaus walked away from her $60,000 a year salary as a fifth grade science and social studies teacher to pursue a career as an artist, a label she only recently claimed for herself.
In an unstable economy and a time where Gen Z is weighing passion careers over practical ones, Niehaus is putting all her energy into her passion. Let’s see how she’s doing it.
How it started
Niehaus’ journey began when she drew a house portrait for her sister-in-law as a present.
“ It’s actually on display at my sister-in-law’s house, and I cringe every time I see it ’cause I’m like, ‘That’s so ugly,’” she said with a laugh. “ it doesn’t look anything like what I do now.”
She continued to practice, gifting drawings to loved ones, and about a year ago she started taking commissions.
“ I only have ever realized the growth when I put things side by side like that,” she said.
Niehaus decided to bet on her talent and left Garland ISD in summer 2025. She found a part-time job as a museum educator, and devotes the rest of her time to her pen and pad. This year, she’s really locked into urban sketching.
How it’s going
To attract clients, Niehaus knows she has to put herself out there. Last summer, she started posting videos about her artwork, sharing travel sketches and more recently, illustrations of some of Dallas’ most iconic buildings. Along with her sketching process, she weaves in the history behind each architectural wonder and how the building is used today.
The timing is fitting: As more and more businesses leave historic downtown Dallas for greener, more modern pastures up north, Niehaus has found herself documenting a part of the city that’s rapidly changing. She sees the beauty in the old materials and unusual angles.
She sketched the Dallas City Hall building without knowing it was at the center of a city council and community debate about preserving the renowned structure. She’s also explored the history of the city’s most iconic cathedral, and pulled back the curtain on the art deco’d Good Luck Gas Station, one of the first oil companies in Dallas.
Fun challenges, like the one offering to exchange art for food, are a way to spice up her content and give her audience something different from her baseline drawing chats. But just because she’s willing to try new gimmicks doesn’t mean she does it without nerves.
“ It was really scary. I mean, watching it on video doesn’t look like a big deal, but I was nervous walking into these places,” she said. “ Everyone’s hearing me get rejected.”
Niehaus sells some of these as prints on her website, 4×6 copies of her intricate sketches for $12 each.
It’s a humble operation—she showed me her drawing desk situated next to her husband’s work desk, with organized drawers of pens, prints, and her $2 Hobby Lobby sketchpads. But just six months ago, she only had 100 followers, and they were mostly people she knew. Now she has more than 13,000 people following her across Instagram and TikTok, and the number’s growing every day.
Envisioning the future
Niehaus said she enjoys her commissioned work, which she’s taking from both individuals and businesses. When we chatted, she was working on capturing an image of the old Dallas Morning News building. She hopes to be able to work with more companies and brands to bring art into their spaces.
But sketching her way through Dallas has spurred another dream: Niehaus wants to travel around the world to memorialize other landscapes. She hopes a day will come when brands will fly her out to create art for them while she documents it all for her followers.
And that’s part of the reason you won’t find the word “art” in her social handles.
“It’s called Earth to Alena because really, I want to be able to branch off and do maybe travel content,” she said. “I think art will always be a part of whatever I create, but I don’t want it to always be everything.”
