HALLOWEEN BONUS!

Title: Our Cousin From England
Materials: Pumpkin, knife, spoon, candle

Inspiration: As you might figure, I love Halloween. I'll be out of town on the 31st, however, so in the hope I might have a couple Trick or Treaters over the weekend, I thought I'd bend my knife in homage of my favorite vamp, Barnabas Collins, Frid-style.

Day 123: Work on Eggshells

Title: Commander Aeihg

Assignment: Work with or be inspired by an eggshell.

Materials: Two eggs, acrylic paint, blue playdoh, hot glue and a bit of dry scrambled egg for the helmet crest.

Inspiration: I started out trying to do an homage to the Doctor Who Sontarans, 

                   but quickly discovered that though the eggs take paint easily, they shatter even more easily.

Decided the only thing to do was create my own alien commander instead.

Day 122: Create a Musical Instrument

Title: The Devil's Dingle Ball

Assignment: Make a working musical instrument. It doesn't have to look, sound or work like any existing musical instruments.

Materials: A Devil's Claw pod from Tucson, courtesy of my bro-in-law Rick, acrylics, beads, wire and a bit of hot glue.

Inspiration: I've always loved these amazing seed pods - Rick had a bumper crop of them this year and I managed to bring two home on the plane completely intact. I wanted to maintain the primitive mask look of them and thought a single bell would be sufficient to summon any necessary demons.

This is what the dried pods look like naturally:

And here is one afterwards...

Day 21: Tinfoil

Title: CrispyCritter Lamp

Assignment: Do something with only tinfoil today. How many different ways can it be used?

Materials: Aluminum foil, a votive candle

Inspiration: Spike wisely left the apartment before I could fashion him an alien space helmet, so I went with Plan B. I wanted to make a shadow lamp, using folded layers of foil to try to strengthen the sides, punched holes, which then became bigger and sloppier so I turned the two largest into eyes.

Created a little candle platform in the base for the candle and a hook out of folded and twisted foil.

It sagged in on itself enough to create a sort of head-like shape, and once lit it took on the creepy look of a burned-up, desiccated corpse. 

I actually like this one the best, even though it doesn't look much like a face. I think the contrasting pattern and the liquid vs rough look of the foil, like hardened metal, is pretty cool. Not the sturdiest of lamps, but it did hold up to hanging from my finger!

Day 120: Invent an Animal

Title: The Dreaded 3-eyed Vaccapolypus

Assignment: Create an animal that has never existed before.

Materials: Sculpy, some tiny beads, some tinfoil and toothpicks for support underneath.

Inspiration: I just let my hands decide what sort of animal they wanted to create. Vac here is about 3 inches high. I did want to experiment some more with using different colors of Sculpy and blending, rather than using any paint.

BINKY BONUS!

Title: Binky

Materials: Sculpie, Acrylics, a garlic press to squeeze out strands for his fiery mane, and there's a toothpick support underneath his horn. He's about 3"high.

Inspiration: My brother Jim has always been a fan of my weirdness, and since he is recovering from some major surgery I made BINKY THE MAGIC UNICORN and mailed it down to him with a little extra healing power juju mixed in.

KEEP GETTING BETTER, JIM! I LOVE YOU!!

Day 119: Box

Title: ボックスの幻影 (Ghost in a Box)
Assignment: Make something in a box. Any type of small box will do: shoebox, cigar box, shipping box, even a suitcase.

Materials: Patterned papers, sculpie, paint.

Inspiration: I wanted to make my own box, so found directions on how to make an origami one with lid. At first I thought the little Noh mask I sculpted would be an ornament atop the box, but I liked the shadowbox effect it made resting inside the box better.

Day 118: Wood

Title: Sentry

Assignment: Make something out of wood. (Any kind will do; twigs, sticks, toothpicks, etc)

Materials: Sticks, reeds and pinecones I gathered on my walk around Greenlake, a few strips of Tshirt (I figured all-cotton material qualified), hot glue to keep his parts from crumbling, a little wine for coloring, PS for touchup.

Inspiration: I'd started out trying to make something that'd be disturbing to come upon on a lonely walk in the woods, but I think he turned out to be more happy wood sprite than Blair Witch.  So I added the disgusting strips of material to give him a little more gravitas and hung him from the nearest thorn branch.

Day 117: Go out of your way

Title: Rosemary's Daycare

Assignment: Travel somewhere you wouldn't normally go today specifically to create something inspired by that location.

Materials: Pen, Pencil, Colored Pencil, PS for touch up.

Inspiration: Anyone who knows me knows that the baby section at the local Target on a Sunday is about the last place on earth you'd ever find me.

The long line of strollers stretching on to the Crack of Doom inspired me,

















and I couldn't resist making this quick sketch 'sequel' to the Polanski classic. (If you click the image you'll see a bit more detail :) )

Day 116: Map it

Title: Alien star chart
Assignment: Create something using an old map OR something that ends up looking like a map.

Materials: Photoshop, Fractal generator

Inspiration: I was feeling more 'free form' today, and didn't feel like going "Ye Olde Treasure Map' route in spite of the name of this blog, so I played around with an online fractal design generator and PS, turning it into something an alien commander might consult.

Day 115: Kit-o-Matic

Title: Wall crawlers
Assignment: Find or buy a kit of some sort (like a plastic model kit, a craft-making ki, or an electronics kit), get rid of the instructions and make something that's not at all like intended results.
Materials: Creepy Crawler kit, acrylic paints, torn sketch paper, PS for finishing touches.

Inspiration: I knew that Creepy Crawler set I snabbed at Value Village for a couple bucks would coming in handy at some point. I had one of these as a kid and nearly burned down the house with it.

Today I went through a number of failed experiments trying to use the back side of the molds as impressions for a rub-on technique, then as stencils, then to attempting a sort of alien clown face out of the stencil and some of the 'stretch goop',

but finally the colors on the molds themselves, and the reverse 3D effect (like the busts at Disney's Haunted Mansion) caught my eye as being a lot more interesting and I finally composed them as a slightly Oriental triptych. 

Day 114: TOAST!

Title We'reToast

Assignment: Make something out of toast or bread.

Materials: Burnt piece of homemade olive rosemary bread, knife, pencil, pen, PS for touch up.

Inspiration: I loved those "Wooly Willy" magnetic cards as a kid:  

 So I thought I'd attempt the same idea with toast 'filings'.

And a quick sketch:

To create this guy:

                       

Day 113: Paint the town RED

Title: "She Was Some Tomato."

Assignment: Work only with red materials today. Try working on a red surface for a real challenge.

Materials: Ripened tomatoes, exacto blade, cardboard, red sharpy, scissors, red shopping bag.

Inspiration: I know, you all expected some gruesome bloody red hand or gore-dripping monster. Well, you got his victim instead in this 'film rouge' homage and utilization of yet more tomatoes from the garden. The black spots where the eyes are were on the tomato when I picked it, making it look, naturally enough, like a stricken little face.

Thanks, Noah!

Wanted to share a nerdy gift I received in the mail today - Noah Scalin, the brain behind the 365 project, put out an announcement that he'd send out 'merit badges' to folks who were working on it if we sent him a short vid of our progress and how it had affected us.

The badge is pretty snazzy - machine stitched and sturdy!

I won't WEAR this magnificent honor, of course, until I actually finish, but it was a nice pat on the back for keeping with it.

And if you'd like to see the video I made,  here it is! 

(It seems to work better when you view in 'full screen mode, btw.)

Day 112: Paint Swatch

Title: Sea Sprite C61-2
Assignment: Work with a few free paint swatch samples found at most hardware stores and use them to create something new.

Materials: More than a few free paint swatch samples, chalk, pen, pencil, scissors.

Inspiration: Who the heck comes up with the titles for all these colors? Is that an actual job? Can I have it? Anyway, I gravitated towards all the 'sea-inspired' colors and one of the larger ones gave me the creature to create today. This may be a not-too-distant cousin to my 'self-portrait' banshee back on Day #64.

Day 111: Leftovers

Title: Phad d'DERRR
Assignment: Make a facial expression on your plate from the leftovers of a meal today.
Materials: Leftover Phad Thai

Inspiration: My family has a long tradition of making the dorky 'DERR' face (aka DURR or DERP face) for family photographs - since the advent of Facebook I've learned to restrain myself. But here is my leftover food sculpDERRed rendition.

Day 110: Mistakes

Title: Indonesian Drain Imp

Assignment: Work with mistakes. Spill some ink, milk or other liquid and then go from there.

Materials: Leftover blended marionberries from my breakfast smoothie, my kitchen sink, a straw and my finger.  PS.

Inspiration: This truly did come from a mistake - obviously I was going for the look of blood - originally I tried doing an 'arterial spray' on some paper, to no avail.  I went to dump it out and start on something new, then saw the pattern in the sink and played with it. Played from there with some more Photoshop for the final product.

Day 109: Dirt

Title: Jeremiah's Grave
Assignment: Play in the dirt. Go outside and create something in or with the first patch of dirt you can find.
Materials: Sculpy, Annie Bonney action figure for the axe shadow and hand, my back yard and some potting soil, a little PS
Inspiration: Another tough one to work with - I really didn't feel in a mud pie monster mood. ;-)
So this is a quick trip to the Eaglehill Cemetery, and one of the well-known residents.

Day 108: Steam

Title: Steamwitch

Assignment: Create something in the steam on a bathroom mirror or other steamed up surface.

Materials: Mirror, Clothing steamer, candle, PS


Inspiration: This was a tough one - I'd already played with trying to do something in the steam of the bathroom mirror way back in the beginning of the project on Day #10, with mixed results (opted to go in another direction that day). I didn't want to simply draw something in the steam, and holding props and the camera at the same time proved too dangerous. I finally took some shots with the flame reflected in the steam, and when I uploaded them, discovered an interesting pattern in the steam, almost like a figure crouching over the candle.

So I emphasized it with PS and came up with this.

Day 107: Have a Ball

Title: Prayin'Mater

Assignment: Make something out of a ball or make a new ball out of something else and then play with it.
Materials: One Green Tomato, Plastic Praying Mantis parts

Inspiration: I figured I could fill the brief by utilizing a BALL shaped THING, and I wanted to use up some more of the bug parts I'd gotten the other day. And just LOOK at how Spike adores playing with his new toy.

 No, really.

Day 106: Thrift, Horatio, Thrift.

Title: HummBuggle
Assignment: Go to a thrift store and buy something to work with today.

Materials: A broken faux Hummel figurine and a bag of big plastic bugs. Hot glue, paint, PS for smoothing. Once again my late afternoon sun, kitchen table and black board help me to create a mini studio shot.

Inspiration: This pathetic little doll really needed to be taken to the lab on the island of Dr. Moreau. The book suggests I 'give it back to the thrift store after I document it', but how could I possibly part with it NOW? ;-)

Day 105: Optical Illusion

Title: The Kindly Old Man Dreams

Assignment: Make something impossible. Can you trick the eyes into believing they're seeing something that they're not?

Materials: Pencil, Pen

Inspiration: I always loved 'topsy-turvy' drawings, and thought I could create a sort of Jekyll/Hyde face here.


Here he is asleep....

 And upside down, this is what he dreams he'd LIKE to be like...

Day 104: Regress

Title: The Monster in the Blue Room
Assignment: Work as if you were a young child or baby. Use the materials they might have access to and/or with only the skills and abilities they have at that age.

Materials: Crayons, lined notebook paper

Inspiration: Like a lot of little kids, I had 'monster in the closet' issues, or at least I said I did. I can remember BEGGING my mom to leave the hall light on (which took on magical preventative properties, apparently) and my door opened more than a crack because of it, but I think I may have just not wanted to go to bed before everyone else did. My punishment for making this up, of course, was that I was promptly visited by something like this in my nightmares.

Day 103: Napkin

Title: KootieKatcher

Assignment: Create something with the napkin you use for a meal today.

Materials: One paper napkin from my kitchen table napkin holder.

Inspiration: Fooling around with the napkin from my lunch, I somehow remembered how to make one of these, a grade school 'fortune telling' trick, and serendipitously noticed that upon folding, it naturally created two eyes and a startled expression.

Day 102: Palindrome, Palindrome

Title: Evil Eve
Assignment: Write a palindrome. Bonus: Illustrate it.

Materials: Pencil, Pen, colored pencils, PS, shot in the shadow of the venetian blinds in my living room.

Inspiration: Palindromes are HARD!! I know this attempt at one is pretty simple, but I didn't want to cheat and use one I found via Google. Watching the "Adam and Eve" plot line in Dark Shadows right now with Kris (and Anne last week!) inspired me to make a little sketch of fabulous Marie Wallace as the titian-haired fury who wreaks havoc wherever she goes.

Day 101: Open a Book

Title: Moju
Assignment: Flip to a random page in a book at hand and make something inspired by the first sentence you read.
Materials: printed out images of body parts and the book entry, cardboard shoe box, tape, Sculpey, flashlight, PS

Inspiration: I opened up my ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HORROR MOVIES and landed on the entry for a  'grotesquely fetishistic' Japanese film called MOJU aka THE BLOOD BEAST.
The plot deals with a "blind sculptor who kidnaps a young model and locks her up in a room with large blow-ups of various parts of the female anatomy." Madness and dismemberment ensue. Created this without looking at any stills from the movie itself - I can't watch movies like this.  The description alone was more than enough 'inspiration' for this little disturb-o-rama.

Whoops! Day 89 a little late...

Title: NCC-1701-A
Assignment: Work only with bubble wrap or any other packing materials you have on hand.

Materials: pressed paper packing box from espresso maker, styrofoam top from wine box packing, packing tape, Sharpie, a scrap of bubble wrap, a bit of PS to push the background.

Inspiration: Somehow I skipped right by this one a few weeks ago; just discovered the omission last night.

Every once in a while, my inability to throw away things comes in handy. While looking through my most dangerously crowded closet for bubble wrap, I came upon these weirdly shaped bits of packing box. I picked up the one from the espresso machine parts, turned it over and thought it looked rather familiar, like a nacelle...and a saucer section...I think for this one my handy black board and using the extra styrofoam bits as stars or exploding planets or an ion trail helped make it look like more than it actually is. And though The Enterprise is not monsterish in herself, I figured Kirk & Co were either on their way to or from a monster, escaping from a worm hole or wreaking their own special brand of mayhem.