A Christmas Portfolio

All works are pen & ink, watercolor and prismacolor pencil on illustration board. Click on each image to enlarge.

Tuesday cartoon...

Oh yea...I'm engaged now.

Have You Seen Me?

Petty theft came to Halloweentown sometime yesterday. Our "house number" zombie was stolen. It hurts. I really liked this guy. I made it easy for the thief ... the base, tombstone and zombie were all one piece. I could be flattered because it means someone liked it a lot. But it hurts.

Not that it's the greatest work I've ever done, but I do take time to create these things, it's not something I can shop at Target to replace. It's crazy I know but as I make these I create little back stories and personalities for them in my head. By the time they are displayed they have become characters to me in a unwritten story.

After 3 years of decorating the lawn in this neighborhood without incident I now have no trust anymore. That hurts worse.

Halloween 2006

You pass the graveyard...



brave the one eyed alien...



and the giant spider...


pass under the guillotine...




and approach the dark figure sitting amid a cloud of smoke holding the candy...


I would of never done it as a kid but many did. There seemed to me more kid's than last year and a few familiar faces. All seemed too have a real good time.










The evening was made extra special having friends and family visit for the night really making a event to look forward too again next year...not pictured were Sandra, Vince, Kelsey and Andrew who stopped by.

Andrew hung out into the late hours and helped scare a couple of later night trick or treaters . We did a bait and switch with him in the electric chair as I stood by like a manniquin. Once I came to life he begged the kids to take me home and I followed them down the street.

Alessandra had the inside house loaded with food and drink and a dark corner of the drive way set up for all to sit and enjoy the scares.

Bill, Leia, Megan, Devin and Paul.


Mom and Dad.

My sister Megan

This post would not be complete without the usual "my niece, Devin" gush. She is checking off the Disney Princess list year to year. Year one- Cinderella, year two- Tinkerbelle, this year-Ariel. As always my favorite trick or treater...



My brother Ted came by to help prep the fun this year almost everyday for a week, we had alot of fun and makes me look foward to next year even more...thanks to him as well for most of these pictures.

This year marks a goodbye to the Micheal Myers costume. I'm going to be something new next Halloween. He'll still haunt the place...just on a manniquin.
It was a fun night with cheesy decorations and cheap scares...I'm already thinking about next year and have a year's worth of mess to clean up.

Never forget...Halloween beasts need love too...

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Countdown to Halloween 6

Fun things you can make with styrofoam, model magic, great stuff insulation spray and paint...



I always thought we needed a better address post. This zombie's head I made with a motion activated skull I found at Cost Plus. His jaw chatters and eyes look left and right while lighting up. The sculpt and animation was great but it made a lame laughing sound with an organ music sting. It's sound quality was just garbled noise. I opened it up and cut the audio wire out.



I've loved pirates long before Johnny Depp made them cool to everyone. I've always wanted to have a pirate skeleton on the lawn and finding a discounted "Jack Sparrow" costume gave me no reason not to make one. I know, I know...Capt. Jack did not have a hook, but I could not help giving him one.



My brother Ted spent an afternoon in the tree making the web for a giant spider.



This guy is the end result of trying to create the illusion he was juggling the pumpkins. I had several clear plastic posts behind him with these pumpkins and more mounted at various heights. The posts kept warping and bending because of the weight. I troubled shooted it enough to make work, but I got frustrated and decided to move on, maybe next year.



The guillotine is up again this year and I added a new skeleton pulling the rope holding the blade.


This weekend I'm setting up the enter and exit path for the Trick n' Treaters on the big night. I'm still adding a few scares.

Little bits for Knit Bits

I made a few fun props for DIY's Knitty Gritty this week. The show has "knit bits", short little nuggets of tips and tricks for knitters.

I made a haystack, a gunslinger holster for an electric hand mixer, a yarn ball that runs away and tiny workout gear for a "knit bit" on hand excersises...



Knitty Gritty host, Vickie Howell, gives her hand a rest between takes...

Craft Lab...View from a Host.

Portrait of a man thinking: "Now I get paid to do what they made me do at Happy Face Rest Home".







The amazing, talented and if in a good mood ...nice host of Craft Lab, Jennifer Perkins, has posted lots of behind the scene photos from the show.

Check them out at www.flickr.com/photos/80545533@N00/

Jen posted only the photos that showed her in the best light. I'll post my own pictures of her beating production staff not having her diet coke ice cold in the morning and her diva tantrums later.

The Crafty Chica and me.

The Crafty Chica herself, Kathy Cano Murillo took time to write a post about me. She must of been really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for something to write about yesterday.

Kathy has to be one of the sweetest, nicest, talented and most productive crafters in the world.

How sweet is she?...She is the only person I've met who described big sweaty Lucha Libre Mexican wrestlers in such a way that they seem like mythic warriors who hand feed baby birds in their off hours.

I learned alot from her as in this past post... click this link to read... The Line is Drawn.

She really has to lay off the glitter though...it's been 2 weeks since she was a guest on Craft Lab and I'm still finding some in the lint trap of my dryer.


Click on or go to www.craftychica.com/blogs/diary/ to read her unexpected post about me, then to her home page to enjoy all her work.