When the moon howls

"Hold on, man. We don't go anywhere with scary, spooky, haunted, or forbidden in the title." Shaggy, close friend of Scooby Doo.

Well said my lanky friend, well said. Perhaps I should have heeded such wise words before partaking of a hundred or more Halloween parties yesterday as I rampaged around blogland hotly pursued by ghouls, ghosts and goblins.

If you missed the party of the season at a Fanciful Twist and have a stomach for such things then do hop upon your broomstick and zoom over to follow the cobweb trails and tales... But a word of caution... do so after dark at your own risk...

It seemed perfectly natural that my Sunday sketching this week would be inspired by such gruesome imagery. This was helped along by the Illustration Friday theme 'spooky' and watching my boyfriend playing some zombie shoot 'em up game on the pc sitting next to me. It's a wonder I have managed to remain sane!

This illustration was an experiment. How can you turn a simple sketch of a girl into something far more sinister? Well, you could cast spells and rub her with newt's entrails, but I preferred the contents of my paint box. I oozed, dripped and splodged and sprayed with a ghoulish mist. Rather effective I think? She started out as quite a pretty little thing and now she looks like she's had a run in with the special effects department at Hammer House of Horror.

I always used to think that painting should be such an exact science, but now I've learnt that half the fun can be in the experimentation. When you drip ink over an eye then tilt the paper you lose control, the art makes itself and the story unfolds before you.

"Where there is no imagination, there is no horror."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle