Art is fun! Dig what you see!
Doing a lot of Halloween concepts has always been fun to draw. Ideas can come quickly if there are several prompts from other people but sometimes there just needs to be a glimpse of an idea, sparked by something I saw somewhere. This is from an idea of a haunted house with a family of monsters, ghouls, ghosts and various creatures.
Time of the season... Halloween. A great time to read and have fun with my book "SKETCH31". Available now for quick delivery before Halloween on Amazon. Get yours today!
Many of our fears and anxieties are on display during the Halloween season, like this one... Ichthyophobia, the fear of fish. Never heard of it? Me either but perhaps a bit of it might exist when some of us find that we are repulsed by the texture, smell or eating of fish. Whether it is shellfish or something as good for us to consume, like Salmon.
And it could also show up with those of us who are somewhat allergic to seafood. Whatever the reason, this fishy ghoul is scary.
A belated Sunday version of my normal Saturday Morning Doodle... A bicycling Pumpkin riding home from a bike ride in the Autumn/Halloween night.
Bicycles, unless really thought out, can be hard to draw from memory and figure out where everything goes. This image serves as the last of the bike riding season, which in some years can be as long as 6 or 7 months but up here int he PNW it can sometimes just be about 4 months. Sadly. Then I have to bring my bike inside and put it on a stationary stand and watch movies while cycling till the spring. I guess I'm a fair weather cycler.
If I had to define or explain this drawing I would have to say that it has to do with this creature doing it's best despite all the skulls, ghosts or ghouls, perhaps representing various anxieties that surround it. Such things make their way into our dreams and nightmares. Might we exorcise those anxieties through this Halloween season.
For Inky Friday... Appearances can be deceiving sometimes. With these bigger than usual monsters, they may look menacing but they are friendly and like looking after their neighbors. Be safe this Halloween season.
Today's Halloween season post is about nightmares. We've all had plenty over the course of our lives. Weird dreams and nightmares are usually the result of some stress or anxiety we have during the day. Occasionally nightmares can happen without stress or anxiety. Possibly those are a result from seeing a difficult or imaginative movie, show or story we've read.
A lot of scary things from childhood remain in your subconscious for the rest of our lives and sometimes they can float up to the surface and you see that they aren't all that scary. For creative types (like me), we can use those feelings and images to create something fun and consequently that helps to dispel those old fears. Perhaps that's a cause for Halloween.
When I painted this one (acrylic on canvas) I titled it "You don't know me".
From a few years ago when I was doing one ink drawing per day for my Ink-tober post. A living pumpkin wearing a witch hat with octopus tentacles in the background and some sort of brimstone smoke.
I got used to drawing in public from working for game companies where sometimes I had to demonstrate my concepts on a white board in a meeting. I would also draw a lot during meetings (sometimes just to stay awake in a boring meeting), so I'm used to people observing me while I draw.
And it's just good to get out of my studio space and have people around to inspire some of that drawings that I do in my sketchbooks.
Some years ago while working on a project and wondering what would be a good Halloween-ish ornament for a fence, I thought about the skull and crossbones (AKA... the Jolly Roger) on pirate flags of the 17th and 18th centuries, and what kind of interpretation that I could do. So I came up with a skull that was made with planks of wood with wooden dowels for the crossbones, surrounded with a metal compass with a wood and steel base with an iron flower at the top.
Another seasonal drawing using a ploychromos dark red #225 pencil.
Monsters can take a variety of forms, like this one that was based on examinations of bugs/insects, with some liberty taken. Those little critters can occasionally be helpful but mostly we regard them as a nuisance. I can only feel itchy when I think they might be crawling on my body. Which is creepy.
And isn't that what Halloween is about?
Halloween Merch to make you laugh or scare you into the night. Either way, come and get some Halloween Merch before Halloween arrives!
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/4301748
This weekends Saturday Morning Doodle is a bit of a silly doodle from my Tomato plants outside who are lamenting the shorter days of sunshine and that many days have been cloudy, dark and cold. I take that is why the huge remaining tomatoes on the vines haven't turned red yet. Time's a wastin' guys... I want eat these sweet tasting nightshades raw and not have to make fried green tomatoes.
Using my Dark Blue Polychromos #19 pencil.
Devils are mean, nasty, evil, etc,... but who tortures the devils? More than likely,... other devils. At least that is what I thought of for this seasonal drawing where this big old devil is pestered by multiple smaller, meaner, demons.
It can happen.
A new episode of my short story "Night of the Bruin" will be available this weekend.
I'll be posting more episodes this month.For Inky Friday and the Halloween season, a page from my "SKETCH31" book.
Which is available for purchase on Amazon.
Today's WRAP (Wednesday Random Art Post) is, of course, seasonally related. This one was a concept for a project some years ago. The Monster Mom is trying to distract the Monster Child from fits of crying with a rattle/toy, of sorts. Obviously it worked and the child was fascinated.
More Seasonal art coming for the rest of October, so stay tuned.
Some time before the pandemic, I tasked myself if doing a version of Ink-tober, which everyone at the time was doing. So I did 31 days of drawings in ink for that month. I started out with this one of Pumpkin Head greeting everyone to the month of October.
A few months after that, I decided to put together a book of my drawings and thought that using the term "Ink-tober" was as good as any and titled my book with that name. A month or so after I published the book, I got a notice from Amazon that they were taking the book down. Apparently the person who supposedly coined (some doubt here) that phrase had created a copyright for himself and hired a lawyer to go after anyone who used that term on their work for the month of October. I got a hold of him somehow and we had a chat. He said that he didn't mean for his lawyer to go after people for their artwork.
However, in order to get my book back on Amazon I had to change the name. So I came up with "SKETCH31" and it's been available for purchase ever since.
https://www.amazon.com/Sketch31-Pen-Marker-Mike-Cressy/dp/1651922705/ref=sr_1_3?crid=28COHXY01AY3E&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.aOjaXbDyvU43ju7rnQeylHRFKGO5k1BDewvhokaO2zUcjEr9kxfRgXPvz_raKxocmmjAmD0V2rlNXXq5_vTAExdfgAd3Zx0X6LKTaemBvyt_nLKLo1V2alkQCzEcTHfokLisj_MM0I7XbfYJJTa43tZRzLvio1dnRF66WDHPrnmeP0ncwko-JFVK95wOWd17umRCK8v7KDawS1whcvi5Z1Emwbc_wl3FJSDpomVlsFc.UH4194qNBMn0roa2IZ8vWCxgZCK4-70BD_zyfGJLWhQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=mike+cressy&qid=1727816105&sprefix=mike+cressy%2Caps%2C252&sr=8-3
