Halloween Gremlins -

And as night falls, the ghosties and gremlins begin to appear...

Beware of who's cooking in the kitchen!

...or lurking in the shadows...

I believe I even caught a glimpse of Coraline and her "Other Mother"...

The house teemed with revelers. Gearing up with glow-sticks before heading out into the brisk autumn wind, flying leaves and dark skies...

...and then back again - with rosy cheeks and hoards of treasure. Which they carefully inventoried while being read spooky stories from the local haunt...

Sugar-happy smiles....

Serious trading and bartering for the best loot....

...until felled by trick-or-treating exhaustion!

Happy Halloween to all you ghoulies out there.

Halloween Night -

(Pass the brief guitar riff at the very beginning to get to the fun-creepy children's chorus...)

As evening approaches, the candles are lit...

...attempting to illuminate dark corners...

...reflecting off of glass and mirror...

...giving maybe too much light where the tortured pumpkins are concerned...

...Being 'ware is maybe a very good idea....

Halloween Day -

(Today is 'Halloween-Children's-Chorus' day. Ignore the visuals, but enjoy the music as background...)

Just some more atmosphere for you from the 'day house'-

Outside, by the playhouse, is a cemetery...

...of course...

All watched over by the 'possessed' cat (or possibly "Pet Cemetery" cat. The jury is still out...)

Old, New England Ghosts....

My brother-in-law took me to see their old, local cemetery today...


(and I know I posted "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" yesterday, but it really is the best possible melodic accompaniment. This is a live, a capella version by Sinead O'Connor - awesome).

Grey skies...

Grey stones...

- a tiny bit of lingering fall color...

...but mostly brown, crunchy leaves, moss and lichen...

...and possibly the occasional ghost...?

Hide and Seek - in ghostly places...

One of my sister's family's favorite activities in their lovely, little cemetery is to play Hide and Seek, believe it or not. :-)


(and while there is no video to accompany it, you really should listen to Toni Child's "The Dead are Dancing" while you peruse...)

Who ever is 'it' must count to 30...

...while the remaining players scatter through out the lot...

(some hiding places are more effective than others...)

Today's skeleton girl took to the trees...

Found you!

Ghost Children ....

I couldn't keep my camera off of fairy-niece #2 as she flitted about the cemetery -


(and as such, thought you should listen to Coraline's "The Ghost Children" as you go...)

(who was tapping on my shoulder? There's no one there...)

Don't you just want to pinch those rosy cheeks? Definitely not ghostly!

Bones for you...

Continuing with the seasonal decor at my sister's house (which my mother insists I point out that the more macabre bits are primarily a result of my brother-in-law), I will tonight share with you some of the lovely bones strewn about..... And to accompany your viewing here is a collage of various versions of "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" by several different Celtic artists:



(My favorite version of this is by Dead Can Dance, but I don't love the one on YouTube. You can see it here if you are interested). (And while not Halloweeny, it is at least topical - here are some scary scary skeletal photos of celebrities put to Kate Nash's Skeleton Song...)

House bones...

Office bones...

Fairy-niece bones (standing in front of the figures they inspired in the mural their parents painted on the elementary school wall...)

..and another peek of a Creepy Doll. Just for you....

Creepy Doll -

I'm at my sister's wonderfully Halloweeny house. It is decorated fabulously and creepily. Tonight I want to share with you the creepy doll head parts. (And to make it even more thematic, here is Jonathan Coulton's "Creepy Doll" video to listen to you while you peruse.



You can also see another live performance of Creepy Doll with the addition of Neil Gaiman's menacing presence. Or see the lyrics here.)

Waterhouse!

-is awesome. Some of his paintings brought tears to my eyes. Wide range of works - from early on (most of those I hadn't seen before) all the way through to the end of his life, including a number of letters, sketches and studies. Some were much smaller pieces than I had expected, and some were enormous.

An incredibly talented and prolific man... wow....

Temporary Interruption -

I'm currently slammed by deadlines, so of course, this is when I have scheduled a trip, and am currently at my sister's in upstate NY (the getting here has been a saga unto itself which you may be aware of if you follow my updates on twitter or facebook).

I'll be here all week. I left my sick laptop at home so my computer presence will be intermittent at best. But if I can, I will post pictures of the amazingness that is: New England in the late fall, my sister's artistically saturated house, our trip to Montreal to see JW Waterhouse, etc...

Cross fingers!

Trying out the new sketchbook -

Can I just say how awesome this toned sketchbook is? I love being able to put the highlights *in* rather than just leaving the white of the page. Of course, I'm not getting to use it right now, because I am drawing Wind Dancer book interiors like crazy. I did these on the retreat last weekend (copying Master drawings to get a feel for the yummy, smooth paper):

This is after a Burne-Jones head study.

And this is after a Hans Holbein study. I have a Dover book of a bunch of his portrait studies from King Henry VIII's court. They are fabulous - and for the most part show somewhat homely, very 'real' looking people. Not idealized at all.

And this is a totally uncharacteristic Alphonse Mucha study. Loved it that he has some 'monster drawings' in addition to his more typical lyrical ladies and lovely art-nouveau botanicals.

Graphite and white charcoal. Drawn in an 11x14, hardcover Utrecht sketchbook with 'oatmeal' pages.