Art
The Conductor
This piece was inspired by a still from a short film Antonina Vasylchenko was in for Bella Belle. The styling, the atmosphere, the sense of graceful elegance —it all felt like something I had to try and capture.
I first painted Antonina years ago. Since then, I’ve been grateful to get to know her—and to learn how deeply she loves music. She’s studied piano for nearly a decade, so seeing her step into the role of conductor felt like perfect casting.
At first, I struggled to catch the atmosphere—the softness, the glow, the hush. But slowly, the piece began to feel alive. There’s something timeless about it now—something Casablanca, something Ingrid Bergman. Quietly radiant.
I hope it brings a little calm to your day.
P.S. I’ve been carving daily and writing a short novella tied to the series. It’s good to be making again—and good to share it here, with you.
Art DBNG
Water Gilding – 24k Gold Leaf
There is no sugar coating this… Water Gilding Gold Leaf was extremely difficult for me to learn. There are so many variables and stages.This project was the first time I’ve used traditional water gilding techniques. The learning curve was very steep. I learned so much through the process, and I’m looking forward to my next water gilding project. This Time-lapse was shot over March and April 2021. The Music was written by my good friend, the talented Tim Frost (links below).
The next video will be coming out soon. It will be on the oil painting process.
Thanks for following along with this piece over the last few years. It has been nice taking the time to get it right. I hope you enjoy it.
Tim Frost
Site: https://allthingsfrost.com
Also get out his Tony Hawk & odin Collaboration on youtube: -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjV05AVfIW4
This Video is the second in a series. view the first video here.
Art DBNG
The Carving | The Day Boy & The Night Girl
In February 2020, as the world shut down, due to the pandemic, I decided to learn how to carve. I purposed to go out side each day and spend a few ours carving. This video was filmed from February 2020 – July 2020. This piece made me fall in love with carving. It was hard exhausting work. I was lucky if i could get in anymore than 3 hours a day. Most days I felt like the carving would never turnout right, Little by little the relief came together.
The music is “L’abandon” by Alexandre Desplat from the movie, “Coco avant Chanel”. I highly recommend this album.
Art DBNG
Quarantine, Carving, & Social Break
This year so far has been a pretty strange one (under statement I know 🙃). When Quarantine started, I took a massive break from all social media. I’m currently still on that break. Not sure when or if I will go back. It’s been a super refreshing time, which made me realize life has been whole lot better without it. I’ve mainly been spending my days painting and carving. Yes carving… haha over the last few 5-6 months I’ve been carving a little bit a day. I’ve really enjoyed it. Two weeks ago I finished carving the relief of the, “The Day Boy and Night Girl“. I’m currently preparing the wood for gilding and to be oil painted. I filmed a timelapse of the carving that I will post when the video is done. My computer is painfully slow (I’m trying to save up for a new one) so I can’t promise the video will be up anytime soon. And though I’m taking a social media break I’m not taking a break from people 😉 So, please comment or dm me below. I love hearing from you. I hope you are doing well and thank you for your support.
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?
