Art
The Panel Girl
This piece was quite the experiment. It took me several months to get the colors and textures right. The concept was cutting up my portaits of Rasa Zukauskaite, Laura O’Grady, and Tanya Dziahileva and putting them together to make one face. I used oil paint and oil pastels on nine individual one foot canvases. It was really difficult to replicate those portraits, but I’m really happy with how the textures turned out. I wish you could see it in person.
Art
Julia Hafstrom Post-it Sketch
I keep a couple of stacks of post-its sitting on my desk, just for when I get the urge to draw I can quickly get my fix. This sketch was from a photoshoot I did with Julia Hafstrom years ago. She is such a sweet and beautiful person inside and out. I have also thought she would be a good reference to base one of our book characters, Sarah Finn, on. This sketch, though really simple, I feel captures the vibe of Sarah Finn. I’m excited to work more on her character design. I will get on with designing the book characters after I finish the Manga characters. I’ve been learning a lot doing all this character design.
Art
Knightcat Redesign
I’m excited for finally showing you the redesign of my brother and my book character Knightcat. She might be my favorite character to write scenes for. She is an amazing character and her character design felt close, but not perfect, thus the redesign. She is going to make a guest appearance in “Lost in the Crowd“, so I started redesigning her last week. I love how she came out.
Her markings were really difficult to design. I did a lot of research and did tons of sketches till a pattern finally worked. Her markings are a form of magical protection. Also her weapons have great back stories. I can't wait to tell you more about it.
Art
The Red Lady
I was taking an exploration of charcoal & chalk on different color tone paper, and this piece happened. For some reason, something just clicked when I was drawing it, and the textures and tone came out exactly the way I wanted. I’d like to pretend like that happens to me a lot, but it really doesn’t happen as often as I would like. I like the vibe of the finished sketch. It reminds me of a mix between Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. I plan on taking more excursions into tone paperland in the near future. Let me know what you think. I hope you are having a great day. This piece is for sale, so let me know if you are interested :)
Art Collages
Under Water Collage
This collage was a fun little experiment I did with my friend Photographer Chadwick Tyler. We had wanted to play around and try things to merge our two styles. One of the first experiments I was curious about trying was hand tinting the photo, so I printed Chadwick’s pictures on transparency paper and painted with oil paint on both sides of the transparency. It gave it a really cool look. I hope you like it :)
Art Portrait
Amina Muaddi
I just finished up this portrait of shoe designer Amina Muaddi a few hours ago. I’ve been working on this over the last few days. For the portrait I used watercolor, chalk pastel, color pencil, and gold paint pen. I kept layering it until the tone and expression were right. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I hope you like it. I’m making a video that will be out soon. Any suggestions for a song for the video of this portrait?
Art Portrait
Miyako 眞鍋 都 (Miiiyaaakooo)
Drawing faces is one of those things that never gets old. I enjoy it so much. Peoples’ faces are so expressive and interesting. It’s such a fascinating subject-matter. Miyako’s portrait was another by-product of stumbling onto a photo that looked too fun to not draw. I couldn’t pass up drawing it. Today I was talking with my friend Katie Rodgers about cutting out those things that affect you negatively, and focusing on activities that lift you and the people around you up. More and more that is something I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been trying to figure out how to spread the hope and joy I have to you all, and encourage you. Well, I hope you are having a great day! ☺️
Art
Lady Gaga + Chadwick Tyler
When coming up with what to post on for Halloween, this photoshoot instantly came to mind. A few years ago, my good friend Chadwick Tyler asked me if I would be one of his assistants on his cover shoot for V Magazine with Lady Gaga & the Cast of American Horror Show. I ended up doing all the post production on the shoot as well, processing the digital files, hand developing all the film, scanning, and retouching everything. It was tons of work, but really a once in a life time experience. Getting digital, 35mm film, and 120 film to all look the same was a super tough task, but I’m really happy with how it turned out. I hope that one day a book of this shoot gets released. There are hundreds of incredible photos in the shoot. I snuck a few quick drawings in there. Happy Halloween!
Art
The Girl & Her Dog
I don’t do many sketches directly from my head without any references. I also don’t do many completely digital drawings. This drawing is the exception. I was doing a lot of charcoal sketches at the time. I ended up making a few photoshop charcoal brushes. I was so excited about the brush, I just started scribbling and slowly, like a photo coming into focus, this soft drawing of a girl on a beach with her dog began to form.
It reminds me of a cool, windy, lazy, overcast day at the beach. I hope you are having a great day!
Art
Richie Hines Light Study
I took an online class earlier in this year by Nathan Fowkes at Schoolism. The class’s main focus was on lighting color, and mood, which is what I’ve really been focused on the last few years. For some time, I’ve really wanted to be able to capture an environment and make the scene feel the way the character/person is feeling. Ever since I took the class, I’ve been doing a lot of little lighting studies working off photo references that have the kind of light quality I’m looking for. When I saw this picture of Richie Hines I instantly knew I was going to draw it. The vibe I got from her facial expression was so pleasant, it reminded me of the feeling when you wake up to the warmth of a sun rise, so I went with this soft morning light quality. I’m happy with how it turned out.
Richie is an amazing artist as well as a model. You can check out her work here.
