Halloween Countdown Begins Tomorrow!!

Well here we are! Teetering right on the edge of Oct. 1!! Time to fall in, and let the countdown begin! If you visit the Countdown to Halloween hub at midnight, you can see the full list of participants in this year's countdown.

As for me, I know I mentioned here on the blog a few months ago I had every thing plotted out. Well, I  still do, although I admit I'm still scrambling to pull it all together. BUT, I am going to give you a run down of what's going to happen here this month. So here it is:

Every MONDAY & WEDNESDAY it's 'HALLOWEEN IDEALS'

Last year while looking around at a thrift store, I came across this book/magazine publication called 'Thanksgiving Ideals'. I picked it up and thumbed through it to see what it was like, since I'm a fan of Thanksgiving. It was from 1965, and it was full of photos, drawings, paintings and poems that were not just about Thanksgiving, but many autumn activities. Canning, back to school, hayrides, jack frost, harvest, etc. But most importantly, it contained a few pages about Halloween. I ended up going on Ebay, and buying a bunch of these Thanksgiving (or sometimes Autumn or Harvest) issues of Ideals from 1962 through to the early 1980's. And now I'm going to share them here with you. Every Monday & Wednesday, I'll be sharing some of the Halloween imagery that appeared in these delightful magazines. It starts with 1962 and goes up to 1972. Halloween is on a Wednesday, so look forward to some extra pages, from '72 and up. I tried to find more info about these books online, but the best I can tell is they began publishing in the 1940's or 50's and ceased publication sometime in the early 2000's.


Every TUESDAY & THURSDAY it's 'HALLOWEEN ART DAY'

I'm planning on posting 8-9 NEW Halloween art pieces that I've done this year! Eeek! Well, I'll say now that I have at least 4 done, and 2 that are almost done, so I'm not in too bad a shape here. That still leaves me with 2-3 pieces to do, and that shouldn't be too much of a hardship. So new Halloween art from me!


Every FRIDAY it's 'BOOK DAY' (with possible give-a-way)

Every Friday, I'm going to recommend a Halloween book. These are all personal favorites of mine. And there is a possibility that I will be giving away a copy of the book I post about. It may very from book to book, but I will expand on the details, when I do each post.


Every SATURDAY it's 'HALLOWEEN GRAB BAG'

I've reserved Saturday to be kind of an open day where I just post about whatever I want. I may post photos of some of my Oct. misadventures, photos of some of my Halloween purchases (past & present), videos of cartoons, etc. It really just depends on what I'm feeling that particular day.
 

Every SUNDAY it's 'HALLOWEEN FOODAGE'

I'm going to tell you a secret: I LOVE to cook. And here's another secret: I'm not very good at it. I guess I'm okay, but I can't tell you how many times I've spent hours working on a meal that just came out mediocre. And many times there are things I want to make, but the time involved makes my head spin. But for at least 4 days in October, I'm going to make a dish I've never made before. And they will all be a pumpkin or squash related dish. If I get recipes from online, I'll post a link to where I got them. If I'm using a cookbook, I'll post a link to Amazon, where you can probably get the book cheap. I'm going to be honest here, this post is more about me than anything. I have to make food, I want to try, in order to have something to post about. And I'm a vegetarian, and many of the recipes I'll be making are vegan. That should be of interest to any veg/vegan readers I have.

And that's it! Come back tomorrow for day one. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and happy countdowning!

All Three VW Dark Shadows Prints Now Available!

For those of you who have been asking for them, they are finally here! All three pieces I did for Video Watchdog's Dark Shadows issue are now available as 8x10 prints! These prints are very limited and once they are sold out, there probably will not be another run of them for several months.

*You can order now, prints will begin shipping on Tues., Oct. 2.

HorrorHound #37 Cover

Well, I just wanted to let you know that this month you can go to your news stand and pick up the latest issue of HorrorHound, with an inside alternate cover by yours truly. This was a tough one to do, and I don't know how well it went over with the regular readers. I've purposely been avoiding reading any social media/blog/message board comments. I know that everyone has their own tastes and people like what they like. And some times, very cartoonish images such as this aren't their idea of 'cover' material. But anyway, I was very happy and proud that I can now add HorrorHound cover artist to my resume.

For those of you looking for this issue, the front cover looks like this:

Then when you open it up there is a second cover, which is mine.

And if you're interested in how my work on the Coundown to Halloween is coming along:
The Halloween season is coming up fast. I'm trying really hard to get a strong head start on the original Halloween art I'm doing this year. So far I'm not doing so good. I have two almost finished pieces. My goal is to have 8. Part of the struggle is trying to decide what to do. I have lots of cat sketches this year, but I didn't want to do all cats. I'm trying to break it up with some other Halloween icons. Also I'm doing a group gallery show at ZaPow on Oct. 5, so I've got to get that done & turned in, a week from Monday. Then I will possibly be taking part in an art show in Raleigh around the 20th. So I'm a tad stressed at the moment. Plus I've been trying to work on sketches and everything just looks terrible. It's really bumming me out. But I'm hoping that everything will snap itself into place, and I will be excited about the countdown again.

Halloween season is picking up steam!

I'm always going to the grocery store. Like I'm there almost every day, sometimes twice a day. I always need something. One of the signs that fall is approaching fast, is the many pots of fall colored 'mums' outside the store. And when you walk inside, you are hit with the smell of cinnamon & cloves from these switch 'brooms' they have. And of course, PUMPKINS! All of these things have now made their way into the grocery here, and I couldn't be happier.

This weekend, I decided to take a trip out to one of our local Target shopping centers to see if they had started putting out Halloween stuff. I chose this one particular Target for 2 reasons: One, they have an in-store Starbucks and I could not resist getting my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season. And two, this shopping center also has a Michael's & a World Market. Well I got my Pumpkin Spice Latte and it was good. But the only Halloween stuff Target had out was some candy. They didn't even have their display stuff up yet. Well, no matter. After Target, came World Market and they had a bunch of Halloween stuff out. I took some photos while I was there:

Great stuff, and they're not done yet!! I actually didn't buy anything this trip. On the website, they have Frankenstein serving trays like the napkins (see third photo down) and I am going back next weekend to see if I can pick one up. Then I'll pick up a few other things. 

One thing I did get this weekend was this magazine, Phyllis Hoffman Celebrate 'Halloween'.

I haven't really had a chance to sit down with it, although I'm planning to do that tomorrow evening. I was very disappointed that Martha Stewart didn't do a new Halloween issue this year, but I'm looking forward to the October issue of 'Living'. 

Angelique of Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows'

I'm a 'rogue' artist over at the fantastic site 'Planet-Pulp', and it's been awhile since I've participated in any of their monthly online art shows. I've wanted to, but I've had other things on my plate. The theme for August was 'Femme Fatales' and I couldn't shake the thought that I really wanted to do a piece based on Angelique from the Tim Burton 'Dark Shadows' film. Angelique was played by actress Eva Green and in my opinion, her performance alone makes the film worth watching. She is my favorite part of the movie. Here's a great clip with her:



ALSO, I can't believe it's September! It sure doesn't feel like it here. The weather was sort of pleasant, almost fall-ish. Then it got hot again and has been that way for the past few days. Blah! But it is now one month until the official 'Countdown to Halloween' begins. I've got a lot of work to do before then, so it will probably be pretty quite on the blog until the end of September. Then things will get spooky!