From the Archives: Haunted

With the header for November 2015 I opted for a bit photo manipulation instead of a drawing - I ran out of time.  I was working with an older photo of myself for a different piece and it became this header.  I've gotten a good bit of mileage out of this image of me with a sheet wrapped around me as a hood.  It has been a creepy gif, the deadly sin of pride, a white wizard, and here a somber figure in the blood soaked bounds of the haunted forest.

For 2015, I wanted to take the headers in a different direction than the work I had been producing.  I chose to adopt a looser style.  Although the 2014 pieces all had some underlying element of dark humor or social commentary, the 2015 headers have all moved back towards the essence of the work I want to create: horror.

{13.33x4.68,  Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}
 

Psyche Delectus: All of It Come Round Again

Your blame only gives power to another.

Recommended Listening:

Crystal Castles

Plague

from Crystal Castles III

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: Feeding The Young

Necessity, Love, Understanding,
all determine our levels
of horror and acceptance.

Recommended Listening:

Phragments and Korinth

Confronting Archetypes

from Mysteries of the Greylands

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: The Light Within

Here we have the header from October 2015 of a crowd burned through with jack-o'-lantern faces.  I wanted to do a piece for the dark season to evoke that feeling of Halloween without simply repeating the traditional imagery.   I wanted something that would give the aura of the unusual that jack-o'-lanterns posses minus the happy go lucky feeling even scary jack-o'-lanterns seem to have.  I also wanted to access that unsettling feeling when a large crowd is looking at you and only you....zombie fears activate!

For 2015, I wanted to take the headers in a different direction than the work I had been producing.  I chose to adopt a looser style.  Although the 2014 pieces all had some underlying element of dark humor or social commentary, the 2015 headers have all moved back towards the essence of the work I want to create: horror.

{13.33x4.68,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: Flames of the Black Lotus

Its taste burns away
any longing but its own.

Recommended Listening:

The Black Angels

Bad Vibrations

from Phosphene Dream

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: Scales

Shedding the scales again.

Recommended Listening:

Lull

Thoughts

from Ambient Vol 4: Isolationism

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: New Perspective

It changes everything.

Recommended Listening:

Sembler Deah

Helen Leven Lang

from Kaessariah. Heel Een Leven Lang

{6.99x8,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

From The Archives: In the Alleyway

I always come back to werewolves.  They have been a terror and a sensual draw since I was very young.  With this piece I tried to explore what made a werewolf different than merely an aggressive canine.  After some introspection and some mood swings thanks to the summer heat, I decided that there is something in werewolves that is, for lack of a better term, "crazy".

The aggression of a werewolf is at toxic levels.  They are rabid.  There is only one solution for them, only one avenue of egress, and that is bloody terrible violence.  In this scenario, I am thinking of lycanthropy as a curse and the werewolf as a doomed soul.  After their transformation and summary consumption of human flesh, the only succor they are able to find is in death. This is after all about the horror.

For 2015, I wanted to take the headers in a different direction than the work I had been producing.  I chose to adopt a looser style.  Although the 2014 pieces all had some underlying element of dark humor or social commentary, the 2015 headers have all moved back towards the essence of the work I want to create: horror.

{13.33x4.68,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: Dark Crown

Its gravity is its purpose.

Recommended Listening:

Yen Pox

Twilight Eternal

from Blood Music

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Kickstarter: The Unkindness of Ravens

Only 4 days left to help Laurie Brewster's new project, The Unkindness of Ravens, to become a reality!

Psyche Delectus: King in Darkness

His burden is knowledge.

Recommended Listening:

OhGr

Pissage

from Undeveloped

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: The Burning Dead

This isn't the first time that the burning dead have been a focus for me.  They've shown up just before the summer solstice for the past couple of years.  I'm not sure what they're all about, but I'll keep coming back to them until I figure it out or rather, they will keep finding me until...

For 2015, I wanted to take the headers in a different direction than the work I had been producing.  I chose to adopt a looser style.  Although the 2014 pieces all had some underlying element of dark humor or social commentary, the 2015 headers have all moved back towards the essence of the work I want to create: horror.

{13.33 x 4.68,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Happy Belated Birthday Halloween!

I had intended to post this piece last week on Sunday, the anniversary of the release date of the original Halloween, but I ran out of time.  It makes more sense to post it today instead.  I spent many childhood and teenage years terrified of Michael Myers.  He would appear spontaneously out of the darkness in my nightmares.  It wasn't until my mid twenties that he ceased to be a recurring presence in my dreamscape.

I watched the original Halloween again this week and still find so many moments unsettling and creepy.  John Carpenter's Halloween was released on October 25, 1978.  Despite the movie's age, there is a sorrowful timelessness about it, a mythic  landscape of fear.  Of course, that relentless theme music haunts forever.  Thank You John Carpenter!

Happy All Hallow's Eve!