Ephemeral Eggs

No time for an oddment today as I'm madly painting eggs, but here's a little Victorian trade card from my ephemera collection for your enjoyment.

Happy Easter, happy Passover, happy Spring to all!

X is for Xing Tian

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is a Chinese character called Xing Tian, a menacing headless giant with eyes in place of nipples & a mouth where his navel ought to be. He runs around like a giant with its head cut off, wielding a deadly battle ax (also a shield, not included).

Admittedly I took some liberties adding the nose & adjusting the mouth... but that's just the kind of NEW MEN I build! Do YOU want to be one? Give me 7 days... I'll see what I can do. ;-)

Acrylic (with a bit of Photoshopic trickery) on an ad scanned from True Detective magazine, March 1939, ~3.5"x8"

T is for Tengu

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is Tengu, a red-faced, long-nosed goblin that roams the world making mischief & punishing the vain. You may have seen masks of this character in Japanese restaurants.

Acrylic on advertisement for Post Bran Flakes, scanned from Delineator magazine, December 1930, ~ 6"x9"

What a lovely, supportive headline, eh? And the copy is even more so:
"You may as well be frank with yourself-- let the least shadow of fatigue dim your facial freshness, let the tiniest trace of tiredness write its hairline autograph at the corners of your eyes or mouth-- and-- "She looks positively washed out, poor dear!" they will say-- "She's one of my best friends and I wouldn't have her hear me say it for worlds, but I'm afraid, so afraid, she's beginning to lose her looks."

Of course, bran flakes will reverse that pesky aging process! Ah, advertising. I sometimes wish Tengu would target copy-writers!

Forging Valentines!

No oddment today (it's an even day, after all)-- but I do have a soft spot for valentines, & thought I'd share one of my oldest favorites-- it's an original Ernest Nister, No. 3078 if you're counting, & when you pull the tab, Cupid's hammer comes smashing down on the anvil. It has been loved a little hard over the years, but the tab still works & I can't resist playing with it every February!

Wishing you all your favorite celebration of the day, whether that means roses & chocolate, or hanging around the workplace wearing nothing but a leather apron. ;-)

Peekaboo!

This little calendar was a Fleam find, complete with a curiously-shaped hole crying out to be oddmentified. So I made a little fellow to peer through & wish you a Happy New Year. Don't try to use the calendar though-- it's a bit out of date.

Acrylic on paper with found booklet, ~5"x5" when open.

The (pre-oddment) cover appears below. There were interior pages too, but no longer attached to the cover. You may see them in future oddments! ;-)

Old & New

No time for Oddmentification today, so instead I'll share one of my favorite old postcards. It was made in Germany & postmarked 1907.

May all of you stellar beings slide happily into the New Year without being knocked down by passing meteors!

Oh Joy...

I have an oddment in the works but at the moment things are just too hectic with work deadlines, house guests & holiday madness. So instead I'm posting a teaser. I found this delightful relic at the Fleam. To me Santa's weary expression juxtaposed with the title is hilarious.

I have a little something in mind for this but I may not get it done by Christmas at this rate! So just enjoy it as is for the moment. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice, & whatever else you choose to celebrate!

I is for Inu-gami

The oddments are back with a roar!!!! That is to say, with a ferocious entry for AlphaBeasts!

This avenging beast is the Inu-gami, a dog spirit.  Frankly this one really terrifies me.

I have a mild fear of dogs to begin with, due to the many attacks engraved on my memory from one traumatic teenage year as a bicycle-riding paper carrier-- but that's not why-- it is the way these creatures are created that really give me the creeps:

According to the Obakemono Project: "One method for creating an inu-gami, it is said, is to tie a hungry dog and place a bowl of food just out of its reach. When its desire is thus focused, its head must be cut off and enshrined, moving its ravenousneeds into the spirit world and creating a terrible weapon for the dog's former master."

Other sources suggested burying a dog up to its neck with food just out of reach, then beheading it. :-O

That's what I call a horror story! I fervently hope people didn't actually do this sort of thing... please let it just be mythological...

Acrylic on cover illustration scanned from St. Nicholas Illustrated Magazine, September 1908. Why these finely-clad youngsters were weighing their puppy, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure they weren't expecting this fellow to barge in.

p.s. Yes, my computer is working again! My electrical engineer brother heroically nursed it back to life. I have a lot of catching up to do, but I'm so happy to be back in action! Thanks "Byte Barn"! (That's what he calls his all-too-busy family-&-friends tech service company, ha!)

Cran-buried

I love Thanksgiving, I really do, but the aftermath, not so much!

I'd actually planned to do this in cranberry "ink" but my first attempt was disappointingly faint, & I really didn't feel like cooking anything else, so I fell back on good old acrylics.

The text is from Little Lessons in Corrective Eating, Vol.II  by Eugene Christian, 1914. I'd planned to tear off the bottom part of the page to make it roughly square, but I just liked that line about skipping luncheon too much to do it.

Spoonful of Thanks!

It's time to start stirring things up for the biggest food-focused holiday of all, here in the US anyway. So I thought it would be fun to paint a spoon. This was the first time I've tried smashing a spoon flat. (I was afraid it wouldn't scan well otherwise.) I used a rubber mallet, laid the spoon on a towel on the basement floor (cement), & waled away-- it was harder than I expected & the results were a bit lumpy, but that just helped me come up with the contours for the silly face.

Acrylic on an old silver-plate spoon, ~7" tall.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'm immensely thankful for all of you who visit me here, & especially those who follow & leave comments!

p.s. I'm about to open an Etsy shop, finally!! If you have any favorite oddments, please let me know & I'll try to list them soon. Thanks again, y'all!

F is for Futakuchi-onna

This week's entry for Alphabeasts! is Futakuchi-onna, the two-mouthed woman. A woman who has been starved,  often by a miserly husband, develops a second mouth in the back of her head, two snaky ropes of hair that reach out to grab whatever food is nearby, & a hugely voracious appetite, though no food passes through her normal lips.

Acrylic on ad scanned from a 1937 True Experiences magazine, ~5"x6"

Isn't it interesting how much ideals of beauty have changed since then? And how little advertising has? This magazine was full of weight-gain snake oil ads... exactly the same tone of shaming & quick-fix hope as in today's diet ads, only in the opposite direction!

D is for Daidara-bocchi

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts!

This fearsome yet playful giant was apparently very fond of messing about with mountains, hence the setting for this portrait, taken from Redway's Natural Elementary Geography, 1897.

I must say, as fond as I am of old textbooks, their blithe stereotyping & patronizing tone often make me squirm. I wonder what Daidara-bocchi would think of the excerpt here....

Acrylic on found illustration, ~4½"x5½". By the way, the big old scratch where D-b's fingernail lands was on the original-- I suspect the engraver's plate had been damaged.

Stealth strike?

Last summer our hammock was stolen from our backyard. I wonder if this guy was the culprit? He looks so innocent, though... & he's actually rather small.

Acrylic on old matchbox label, ~1½"x2"

C is for Chōchinobake

I was so tickled to discover this monster, clearly related to Jack-o'-Lantern, just in time for the Halloween edition of AlphaBeasts!


Acrylic on found illustration, ~4½"x5½"


The illo in the background is from one of my favorite Fleam Finds, The Museum of Science & Art, 1855. I couldn't bear to tear that one up, so I scanned  & printed it to paint over. If you click to enlarge & look very closely, maybe you can see the flying bat-skulls on the wall. I didn't even notice those until I started painting-- kinda spooky! Happy Halloween, everybody!

B is for Bake-Neko

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is again inspired by Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yakō.

The bake-neko is a giant ghost-cat. According to The Obakemono Project, "...bake-neko could exceed normal cats in size by orders of magnitude, reaching their enormous arms in through doors looking for human prey like an average feline pawing around in a mousehole...."

Her Odd Materials No. 16

Acrylic on a torn-out portion of an illustration from St. Nicholas magazine, August 1920, ~4"x5"

A is for Amikiri

Today is a red-letter, red-monster day: the beginning of a new alphabet project, AlphaBeasts!

Successor to Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, this one is hosted by Andrew Neal & will center on mythical creatures. I think it may be even more fun than the last! I'm hoping to do all 26 letters, & looking forward to discovering many new oddities along the way.


My first AlphaBeast is the Amikiri, or Net Cutter, from Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yakō. I'd never heard of this curious creature with its very specific form of mischief before. I certainly hope it leaves my curtains & fishnets alone!

While this is AlphaBeast No.1, it is also Her Odd Materials No.13. Hmm, sounds like something from mystic numerology.... Acrylic on a cutting from a Larkin Catalog, c.1940, ~5"X6", found at the Fleam of course.

By the way, if you'd like to see my entries for the last series, Animal Alphabet, you'll find most of them on my sketch/process blog, Curious Art Lab. I was late to the party though, so you won't find all 26 letters there, alas!

Light-Headed Contraption

I loved IF's prompt this week-- I only wish I had more time to make more elaborate contraptions! But I'm crazy busy all week, so just time for a quickie today. 

Acrylic on found red light bulb, antique shears & miniature pliers, held together (badly) with copper & brass wire. About 5½" tall.

Her Odd  Materials No. 12

Micro-Mold Monster

One of my odder Fleam-ish purchases was a box of used microscope slides. I think even the vendor was a bit grossed out by them-- she looked quite shocked by my purchase! But they actually make a fun micro-canvas. It was an interesting exercise to fit in a little-bitty monster without covering any of the handwriting.

Her Odd Materials No. 11, Acrylic on used microscope slide, ~1"x3"

p.s.Anyone out there with a clue who R.E.M. might be? I seriously doubt these slides belonged to the recently-disbanded band... though many have accused them of moldiness in their latter years.

Pot-Head

Hot tea suddenly becomes very enticing at about this time of year! I figured I might as well paint with the dregs.

Concentrated Earl Grey with white gouache & touches of Raspberry Zinger on found paper, ~4¾ x 3¾". The book this page came from is Consumer Goods/ How to Know & Use Them by Reich & Siegler, ©1937.

How useless to the novice is that "method" at the bottom!? :-D Especially considering that the book was aimed at "young people," according to the editor's introduction. Not even a hint about brewing time, &c. I suppose it was understood that one could always ask Mother.

Her Odd Materials No. 9

B-Side Beastie

I was sorting through a box of Victorian scrap hunting for something to use in Her Odd Materials, when I happened to glance at the back side of one of them, & immediately saw a monster-head. So of course I painted it!

The image below is the original chromolith, i.e. the A-side of the Oddment. (If you're having trouble seeing the shape, note that it's rotated 90° & flipped. Her head is the beastie's nose.)

H.O.M No.7: Acrylic on reverse of Victorian scrap, ~2½x3½"

If you missed the link on the last oddment, I'm a "Cryptkeeper" for countdowntohalloween.com-- be sure to check out the other spooky/monstrous/festive blogs on the site!