S is for Sazae-oni

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is probably about as close as I've ever come to painting a pin-up. Not exactly my usual genre! :-O

Sazae-oni is a shape-shifting bakemono who lives inside a turban shell. Sometimes she disguises herself as a beautiful temptress in order to lure sailors to their... dismemberment, shall we say?

I decided to depict the moment afterwards, when she begins to reveal her true, rather crabby nature to her poor victims. After all, vamping it up can be fun, but sometimes a girl's just gotta relax & be herself.





Acrylic on illustration scanned from Wonders of the Heavens, Earth and Ocean, 1887 (with some Photoshop touch-ups in the grand pin-up tradition) ~5.5"x8.5"

N is for Namazu

This week's critter for AlphaBeasts! is Namazu, a giant catfish monster who causes earthquakes & tsunamis whenever he manages to wrestle free from his usual captive state. I thought it was interesting that catfish do tend to abandon their normal bottom-feeding habits when they feel tremors; their unusual activity at such times probably led to this legend.

Acrylic on illustration from Cornell's Primary Geography, 1873. (And yes, I know catfish don't live in the ocean. Namazu is a river-beast. But I figured he might wander seaward when he's in mid-mischief.)

H is for Hakutaku

This is a belated entry for last week's AlphaBeasts!

Hakutaku is the Japanese name for a Chinese monster, Baí Zé, who supposedly dictated a legendary demonography. The original Chinese form of this creature was more lion-like, but in Japan it developed a more chimeric form, possessing nine eyes & six horns, a semi-human face & goat-like hooves. Further distorted by me. :-)

Acrylic on an ad scanned from a 1937 True Experiences magazine, ~5.5"x7.5"

I'm hoping to get back to my regular Oddments schedule now, but I am still running behind due to the dreadful computer crash, so please forgive me if I'm a tad erratic!

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!

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!

Mini Monster Mash

I'm feeling a bit dizzy at the moment, with five different projects underway (in addition to Flash classes & deadlines) & none of them quite scanner-ready.

So I decided to post this little doodle, completed while watching online Flash tutorials, in between taking notes on the stuff I needed to know. (Yes, I do take notes with a crow-quill sometimes! Call me antediluvian,* but it helps keep my calligraphic hand in fighting trim.)

I thought it looked a little like a particularly odd Halloween party.

I draw this sort of nonsense often-- it helps calm me down when my brain is boiling. You should see my college calculus notebooks. By the way, I firmly believe that doodling helps me concentrate. I caught no end of grief for it in school (even though I made good grades) but a couple of years ago I saw this study & felt vindicated. :-D

Hunt's flexible crow-quill pen & ink on legal pad, ~3"x4"

*This is actually a teaser for one of the pieces I'm working on!

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.

El Curiosidad

When my husband visited Mexico a couple of years ago, he brought back a set of Lotería cards for me to play with. Mind you, I'm not much for card games, but he knew I'd have fun with the images. Thanks, T!

For a monster, this guy doesn't look particularly ferocious, & I think it would be pretty amusing to see him chasing his prey, given his obvious lack of aerodynamic finesse. But he does look as though he has managed to devour plenty of something, so if you should ever see him coming, beware!

Her Odd Materials No. 5

Acrylic on Loteria card.

Yeasty Beastie

Poor, unsuspecting children & shop-clerk! Little did they know that an innocent purchase of Lupulin Yeast Gem would awaken this ferocious oddment.

Acrylic on Victorian advertising scrap, ~2½x4"

Her Odd Materials No. 3

Tyrannical Time

Time is a ferocious beast that devours my dreams on a daily basis.

I'm possibly the slowest painter in the universe. That's one reason I usually work small. I have so many ideas, so much I want to do, but there's always a huge backlog. I started this project to try to speed up my process, & to some extent it has, but never enough to keep up. Once I start painting, I go into a sort of trance, & next thing I know, hours have passed. Sigh...

This one was actually a quickie though, because it's so tiny! Acrylic on an old watch face, ~1 3/4" in diameter.

Her Odd Materials No.2