Wednesday, March 02, 2016

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}

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

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 soulAfter 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}



Wednesday, November 04, 2015

From the Archives: The Burning Dead


This isn't the first time that the burning dead have been a focus for meThey'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}


Saturday, October 31, 2015

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!

Friday, October 30, 2015

Halloween From the Archives: Take One


In the spring of 2015 I created a set of Halloween themed pieces as submissions to a fiction print anthology focusing on Halloween.  The anthology was set for a juvenile reading level.  I toned down my usual gore and darkness and tried to shift my imagery a little towards the lighter side.  You will see as the pieces progress that the darkness began creeping through regardless.  Although my submissions were rejected, I ended up with six lovely pieces that I will be sharing between now and All Hallow's Eve.  I hope you enjoy them.

This final piece is where my usual darkness finally breaks through.  This image almost ended up gritty and blood splattered, but I pulled back.  This could easily be a piece from one of my Halloween Outbreaks.  It may yet be.

I kept thinking about this piece until I finally decided to do a blood splattered version.  Here is your dark treat a day early!  Happy Halloween!

I only just realized that so many of the pieces in this set feature doorways.  hmph.  What is so fear filling about doorways?  What comes through them?  What might come through them?  What dread gatekeepers guard them?  What have they been enclosing, holding back and is it now loose?  Oh Doorways, you open and you close.

By the way, The big day is tomorrow.  It's almost time.  Don't forget to wear your masks.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}



Monday, October 26, 2015

Psyche Delectus: Distillation

Despite blockades,
Despite interruption,
the painstaking is continuous.

Recommended Listening:
from Abyss

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




Friday, October 23, 2015

Halloween From the Archives: Dead End

In the spring of 2015 I created a set of Halloween themed pieces as submissions to a fiction print anthology focusing on Halloween.  The anthology was set for a juvenile reading level.  I toned down my usual gore and darkness and tried to shift my imagery a little towards the lighter side.  You will see as the pieces progress that the darkness began creeping through regardless.  Although my submissions were rejected, I ended up with six lovely pieces that I will be sharing between now and All Hallow's Eve.  I hope you enjoy them.

This one is mostly a mood piece.  However, there is something inherently creepy about a single child standing alone, not seeking out the care of an adult.  The skeleton costume helps with the creepy, of course.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}



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