DAVE LOWE DESIGN the Blog: May 2011

30 Years Ago... Adventure got a Name

Coming soon everyday in June.

If your celebrating Indy's first movie adventure as well on your blog, leave a comment. I can't promise fortune and glory kid, but maybe some fun by adding you to the 30th link list on the sidebar.

Pumpkin Watch 2011: The New Patch

Trying to grow pumpkins again this year. This time, they have a very long garden bed created just for them off our backyard patio. So far, so good. It may just be my enthusiastic rose colored vision, but now that they're well established in the ground they seem to grow almost an inch daily. If we only get one decent pumpkin I'll be happy.


Week Three

Week Five

Today: Week Nine

My luck with them in the past has been so-so. First time, several years ago, I was overzealous and went for the giant mammoth variety. The vines grew too big of course weaving into every other backyard plant, bush and shrub. We did get 2 or 3 small pumpkins though.

The next year's attempt was foiled by our dog Grover, he was still just a pup and loved digging. The pumpkins didn't stand a chance. As a matter of fact, almost every plant in our yard barely survived Grover's landscaping hobby back then.

I gave up on pumpkins for awhile. I did try an experiment last year by container planting and tomato cage growing a vine. I had read somewhere it works. It did not. It started off well, but the vine had stunted growth and never bloomed.

Old Pirates On Watercolor Tides

My love of Pirates should be no secret to those who have sailed these treacherous blog waters with me for awhile. It began long ago when I was 14, maybe 15 on our family's first visit to Disneyland and discovered Pirates of the Caribbean. That trip had a profound creative influence on me. Here's a pen/ink and watercolor from those days in 1980 hoping to be another NC Wyeth or Howard Pyle.

I had even sketched the idea first. Not a real surprise though, swashbuckler drawing was a daily occurrence then (along with barbarians and unfinished attempts at submissions to Marvel comics).

And now a word from our Apocalyptic sponsor

Return of the Boogeyman

I colored one of the Boogeyman sketches I posted about a little while back. I'm always trying to trust more in my pencil drawing with added color as finished illustrations. The sketchy lines have more life to them than anything inked (well, at least with my current inking skills).

Fun Fact: Disney thought this too. Taking advantage of new technology in 1961, trying to retain that unique penciled vitality, the animation drawings for 101 Dalmatians were Xeroxed onto clear cels for the first time before coloring as opposed to traditional hand tracing and inking.

What's in a Halloween Haunt Name?

Well, for me over the past few months, a lot.

I've always enjoyed how folks have named their haunts and created fun back stories. I've always wanted to do the same for mine. The tale for the display has been evolving over the past few years and is coming into focus, but thinking up a good title has been really tough though. It actually had become something I'd ponder countless times a week. Then I realized it's a silly thing to be obsessed over and just let it go.

Cut to a few days later. I started to sketch an idea of double stacking my foam cemetery posts to create taller ones and adding large lanterns on top. Without thinking, I doodled an arched sign between them and scribbled in a name that should of been the obvious choice from the beginning. I just didn't realize it.

Ladies and gentleman, ghouls and goblins: my annual temporary Halloween themed public art installation will now also be known as...

I think it's going to be a lot of fun merging both the comic and the Halloween yard. Who knows? Maybe even create a small book of cartoons to give out to trick 'r treaters telling the back story. We'll see.

Look for www.paraabnormalthehaunt.com soon. I hope it to be a fun companion site. It will be more of an online portfolio for my Halloween stuff rather than a blog. My usual Oct 31st prep, project updates and occasional how-to's here aren't going away any time soon.