JackOWLantern

I do love Halloween-- after all, it is the oddest of holidays! To paraphrase Dickens, I honor Halloween in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. But especially today, of course!

I'll add an illuminated nocturnal view of the JackOWLantern tonight, once I get home from a Halloween Hoop Jam in the park, with costumes. Oh boy, I just can't wait! What are your plans for the evening?

Happy Halloween to all! Oh, & check out ArtBizBlog today-- along with some great advice about artists' fears, you may see a familiar skeleton monster creeping by! :-)

Edit: As promised, the JackOWLantern in its nocturnal glory. :-) Sorry, no photos from the Hoop Jam, but it was great!

George Washington Zombie

I'm running late again with AlphaBooks because I spent too much time fooling around with this horrible little Oddment! It's a ceramic doll-head of GW that I picked up at the Fleam some time ago, and, inspired by CreepyGlowbugg, I decided it was high time to zombify him.

First I did a little deconstructive surgery with Sculpey to give him a bulging eye & drooping lip.

Then I gave him a base coat of acrylic. I thought the green back of the greenback would make some pretty sweet zombie skin, so I scanned one & tore it to bits to collage nearly all of his skin. (I especially like the way his chest ended up reading "One Doll.")

I let all that dry overnight before adding the finishing touches with acrylic.

I wonder what GW would make of the current election process if he really did rise from the grave this Halloween?

Speed Demon

Although I'm a fast walker, I'm a very slow painter. This blog has largely been an exercise in speeding up, letting go of some of my perfectionist & horror-vacui tendencies, & getting out of my own way. It's been a struggle (& to be honest, I'm still struggling) but I have learned an awful lot & had loads of fun.

And I can hardly believe it, but I'm coming down the home stretch! My next post (7 June 2012) will mark one year of oddments.* My, how those days hurried by!

Acrylic on text scanned from The Complete Instructor in Boxing, Swimming, Gymnastics, Pedestrianism, Horse Racing, Prize Fighting, Boat Raceing (sic) and Other Sports, 1881. The title is almost longer than the book. ;-)

* I'll be doing something special for the anniversary. Stay tuned!

Jammin'

When I saw this week's IF prompt ("hurry") I thought about traffic jams. I don't enjoy driving, least of all in heavy traffic. Also, I think modern cars are needlessly boring. Wouldn't it be much more tolerable to be stuck in traffic if there were interesting vehicles to look at instead of a sea of clones?

Acrylic, ink & white gouache on c.1950 mileage report form, ~4.5" x 7"

Hi-Top

Do you remember the glory days of the Hi-Top Fade? For this guy they never ended!

Acrylic on used paintbrush, ~1"x 8"

Faded

When I saw Illustration Friday's prompt this morning, I thought of yesterday's gardening session-- not only the faded flowers I was deadheading, but the faded way I felt after excessive stooping, pulling weeds in the hot sun!

At first I thought it would be fun to do a stencil over colored paper & leave it in the garden to fade, but I realized that might take too long, so I decided to use bleach as my "ink" so as to fade the paper more quickly.

It was strange drawing with bleach, because the marks were almost invisible as I made them, developing over time in a mysterious & somewhat unpredictable way. It was almost like drawing "blind" actually, only I could see where to put the next line, if I waited long enough. Definitely not at all like drawing with white ink, despite the similar final effect.

If you try this, DO NOT use a treasured brush or nib, because the bleach will wreak major oxidative havoc with it. Even in the short time it took to do this sketch, the brand-new nib I'd loaded rusted out shockingly, & I had to keep wiping the rust off it to keep the lines light! Luckily I buy Hunt's 108 nibs by the dozen so I have plenty to spare.

Also, I'm pretty certain this process is not at all archival! But still, fun for an experiment.

Chlorine bleach on colored paper, ~2.5"x5"

Blind as a (Mole) Rat

This oddment was (very loosely) inspired by the naked mole rat, everybody's favorite, cuddly-cute pet, right? %}

I first learned about this curious species in the movie Fast, Cheap & Out of Control-- an entertaining documentary about four unusual & obsessive fellows, one of whom, Ray Mendez, studies the nearly-blind, tunnel-dwelling, hive-social, queen-dominated NMR.

Acrylic on found package of Tonetex Opthalmic Lens, ~2.25"x3" (open)

Nutty

You can probably tell from my profile icon that I have a thing for horse-chestnuts. I usually have a few hanging around the house, & it suddenly occurred to me that I should paint one for IF's kernel prompt!

Acrylic on horse-chestnut kernel, ~2" wide

Puzzled

A little bitty quizzical quickie for IF-- this fellow was painted in acrylic on the back of a jigsaw puzzle piece. He's about 2" from ear to ear.

Inkling

Just a quickie today-- I was doodling with my flexible crowquill (Hunt 108) & this fellow flew out. I thought he belonged on my trusty Winsor & Newton Indian Drawing Ink bottle (fond though I am of the original Michael Peters spider, which you can just make out on my drawing table post).

Groundbird

A silly little entry for IF's "grounded" prompt.

It just so happened that I'd recently bought one of these grounding adapters so as to plug a new lamp into our antiquated outlets. The shape & texture reminded me a bit of a flightless bird, so I broke out my Testor's gold enamel & feathered it up. The eye & background are acrylic on paper.

1 7/8" tall.

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!)

G is for Gashadokuro

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts!

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise... Gashadokuro, the giant skeleton! This huge & deadly creature likes to bite off human heads. Its appearance is heralded by a ringing in the ears. I think I've had some close encounters after performances by loud bands! ;-)

Acrylic on illustration scanned from Frank Leslie's Chatterbox, 1880-1881, ~6.5"x7.5" You may need to click the image to see the tiny human in the picture-- he was much more prominent to my eyes before the skeleton crept in, though luckily he still has his head.

Edit: Isaac asked to see the original illo before Oddification, so here it is! Click for a closer view, & I think you'll see what I mean about the human figure.

Also, I can finally now reveal that the "Mysterious" series was to illustrate A Word A Day for this week! As a word nerd, I dearly love that site, & I've been a subscriber for ages, so I was over the moon to be a part of it.

Speaking of over the moon, I just have to give a shout-out to another Curiosity: the one that's headed to Mars!!

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!

E is for Enenra

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts!

Enenra is a smoke-monster, normally found hanging around bonfires, but today emerging from a pack of pipe tobaccy. Can you believe this ad, from a 1939 True Detective!? Nothing like a whiff of good tobacco smoke to cure what ails you!

p.s. Yes, I live in Raleigh, NC, tobacco country. But my grandfather smoked a pipe until the day he could no longer breathe. He died of emphysema. So did my grandmother, who only inhaled his (nonstop) second-hand smoke.  I am not a tobacco advocate!

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"

Surprise!

I almost forgot that today was an odd day too. Had to squeeze this in at the last minute... I think poor James is about to get squeezed too!

Acrylic on stamp, ~1½" square
Her Odd Materials No. 18