# @stevedmcdonald on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DWVRpi_jGmr
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63359022-stevedmcdonald-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/776b8c1737.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-26T03:23:38.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Steve McDonald 🎨📚 (@stevedmcdonald) — https://gondola.cc/stevedmcdonald

## Caption

'Vanishing Sanctuaries'

I’m not religious (at all), but I’ve illustrated a lot of churches.

In many small towns, they’re still the most compelling buildings around, especially in that early morning light, when they seem to hold onto a kind of quiet power. For me they always feel emotionally divided: hopeful and ominous, comforting and strange, nostalgic and more than a little cultish. They carry something beautiful and something unsettling at the same time.

I think part of what pulls me to them is that they feel like disappearing landmarks, both physically and culturally. Many are fading from reality through wear, neglect, and time, and they’re also fading from the center of small-town life. They used to stand at the heart of things. Now they often feel like remnants of an older gravity.

Whatever else they are, they’re rarely boring. And in the right light, they can still feel like the whole town is orbiting them for one last moment.

#illustration #church #landscape #surrealart #architecture #artwork #sdm #illustration #digitalillustration #hybridart #contemporaryillustration #digitalpainting #traditionaldrawing #customdiffusion #adobe #aiart #oldschoolartist #newschooltools

*My illustrations come to life through a hybrid process that blends hand drawing, custom diffusion models, SD rendering, Adobe Photoshop drawing and painting, Topaz filters and effects, custom texture overlays, and a deep archive of traditional artwork and photography used to train my models.

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 3,800
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 28

## Tags

traditionaldrawing, sdm, newschooltools, church, digitalpainting, artwork, digitalillustration, oldschoolartist, adobe, illustration, hybridart, architecture, customdiffusion, aiart, contemporaryillustration, surrealart, landscape

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