I spent yesterday painting. I love Christian Icons, the archangels, Jesus, Mary and saints. I've always wanted to do a similar painting but with animal heads in place of human ones. This is my first stab at it. Keep in mind it is still unfinished.
I need to change his hands; either his right hand could be the weird two fingered "Pope hands" or he could be holding a spear like one of the angels. Actually, the only part remotely right so far is his cute little 'possum head. The wings are okay, but the rest has to change.
I moved on to paint ornaments for a change of pace. I love these black ornaments and there's so much you can do with them but to me they begged for Jolly Rogers, yarg! On the larger ones I painstakingly brushed the skulls on in gesso with a tiny liner brush. I'll go back over those today with white acrylic. I love this kind of tedium; mandibles, tiny teeth, nose holes.
I also have small 2" ornaments and for these I switched to a silver sharpie. I'd like to have a twin tip for the smaller detail but I don't know if they make metallics in twin tip? I'm favoring this method because it's just one step. You can't make any mistakes though, once it's on there that's it.
It is 32 degrees outside and a wonderful day to stay inside detailing cute little Halloween things.
I had a thought yesterday about the one advantage Christmas has over Halloween. On November 1st Halloween is over (except at my house). It is a huge let down, you just have to go cold turkey, society in general moves on straight to Christmas without even slowing down to Thanksgiving. It is awful. In contrast, Christmas has a whole week of decompression built in. The week between Christmas and New Year's is a time you can leave the tree up, relax and enjoy the afterglow of the holiday. It's traditional to leave all the decor in place until New Year's day. By the time January first rolls around I am ready to take down the tree and all things Christmas and move on with the New Year, a fresh start!
Even though I'm not a die hard New Year's Eve-r I always welcome the "clean slate" feeling it brings with it. I don't usually go out to do the count down, it's just not my holiday. I will spend this one at home with a glass of wine with a fire burning in the new year. I might throw something symbolic on it as a ritual cleansing, maybe some old medical bills!
I am ready to move on!