Squid & Octopi, Oh My!

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all well out there. I have been busy, busy over here as usual. To start, I just did a really different portrait shoot for a contest that I entered. The contest asked you to push the envelope of traditional portraiture. I think I did it with these, don't you? The rest are on my Flickr stream here. And thank you to my little model for braving the seagulls for me. You'll be seeing more of her in my Christmas imagery.

What else? Oh! Two exciting things over at my shop. First of all, I'm doing some house cleaning and I have moved some of my older work, and all of my cards to a Soon to be Discontinued section and I have discounted those prices 50%! Great prints and cards at lower prices for your holiday shopping.

Secondly, I am having a 12 SALES OF CHRISTMAS promo for my Facebook fans only. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next month, I will feature an item or items and give you a promo code for 20% off until the next sale day. I started today and all lockets are on sale until Wednesday! Go like the page and get the deals.

I have some amazing new work I'll be posting very soon, but until then, I thought I'd share this great little painting I found recently and hung up in my office. It was $5 because the frame was loose! Totally worth it. I love the Wuthering Heights feel of those cliffs and that tree. Great stuff.

And on the cephalopod theme, my Sweetie had a birthday yesterday and I decided to make it really special. So, I booked a tattoo session for her and let her pick out any image she wanted. She happened to pick out The Creature From the Black Lagoon which her amazing tattoo artist then combined with a squid in a fight to the death. This tattoo is amazing and she's delighted. Check it out:

And then, keeping with the theme, Bridget, a very good friend of ours, artist and owner of Inventing Trees, decided to part with one of her favorite pieces so I could give it to my Sweetheart for her birthday. This piece is huge and vibrant and so well done. We are delighted to have it in our home and it already has a special place. Her work is amazing.

I will leave you with this amazing photo to make your week a little brighter; a wee octopus. Adorable, isn't it?

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Sweet but Deadly...

Hello Lovelies~

Well, the holidays are literally almost here and things have been nutso here at the Mill. (In a totally good way of course.)

First off, I have less than 10 Zom-B-Vex 15-Month calendars left and I want them gone. So, I have reduced the price on those to get them moving. If you've been debating, now's the time to act!

I have mentioned my Dark Harlequins on here a number of times and I just finished a harlequin commission for a friend. She found this huge one at the Goodwill and wanted me to pretty her up. Which, I did. This will probably be my last piece in this series. I love painting on found objects! If you find something that you'd like me to darken up for you, shoot me a message and we'll chitty chat.

Those of you who've followed the blog for awhile know that my Sweetie and I are slowly renovating our mill condo. Well, we put down trim throughout our upstairs to finish off our hardwood flooring this past week. It looks terrific, take a look:

I have a few more additions to my Christmas decor this year that I wanted to share. (As you all know, I love old and strange things... ideally both.) I received this wonderful present from a friend last week. Yes, those are bearded lady ornaments she made herself. I about passed out from glee when I got them and they went right on the tree.

I also found this old Santa head that lights up for a steal! Once I got him cleaned up and hung, he looked great. He'll be creeping us out at Christmas for years to come!

For the final installment of the Holiday Gift Guide do I have some doozies for you. The item of the week, is not for sale (unfortunately), but I wanted to point it out nonetheless. I am finding some wonderful Japanese crafters and illustrators and Hine Mizushima is the latest great find. You may know her shop as Hine on Etsy, I mentioned her a few posts back, but check out this Octowreath... holy smokes. Coveting.

The shop of the week is Kush Kush. Their felt brooches and hair accessories and just general cuteness make me want everything in their store. It may be too late to buy gifts, but I may be gifting stuff to myself from this shop...

I will leave you with this great animated gif via Who Killed Bambi from Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis. I wish all of you Lovelies a happy holiday week. See you next Monday!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Facon de Parler...

Hello Lovelies!

I have been really busy in the rainy old mill this week and I have a lot to share! First, I have finally surpassed 100 sales in my store, so to celebrate, I am having a print SALE this week! The details are at my shop and in the button below... A perfect time to snag those prints you've been eyeballing.

I have added another piece to the Cigar, Creeper & Dark Circus and Sideshow series; Algonquin the Clown. He was a fun one, and I added a little monster shadow there for added creepiness... though, he looks more sad than scary.

I have also started a new series called Facon de Parler, which literally means a manner of speaking or a turn of phrase. I am using it to refer to the seed of an idea, paired with an image that gets the mind thinking about a whole slew of possible things. The first three, Train Hallway, The Birds and Dead Bird are picture below. More to come on those (and not all will be dark, I may do whimsical too... maybe.)

And to wrap up business, I was recently featured in a great carnival treasury put together by Favoritescents, thank you!

I have been on a decorating kick here lately and I love to go to Restoration Hardware's website and look at all their stuff and get inspired. Well, I have been looking for a trunk for the end of the bed and so imagine my delight, when a search for "trunk" brought me to this trunk secretary. Not at all related to my end-of-bed trunk mission, but isn't it fabulous? Wow. (And for the price, I would have to take up residence inside...)

Have you Kids seen the work of Chris Anthony before? Wow. Amazing stuff here. Kind of circus meets horror with gas tanks and masks thrown in for interest. I will take one of each please...

I found an illustrator on Society6 the other day who I immediately fell in love with. Julian Callos's work is pretty amazing. It's like cartoons from the 1940's meet Asian silk paintings meet Edgar Allen Poe and I love every piece.

Let's wrap up with a short movie review, shall we? Sure we will. It's Alive, not the old one, the remake (not that it matters, they apparently both suck). The basic premise is a young woman gets pregnant and through a series of totally preposterous events, she gives birth to... I really don't know what. A demon? An alien? The Tasmanian devil? Regardless, "it" is born and proceeds to kill everyone around her... violently. Like, really violently. Like, buckets of blood being thrown around inside a car violently. I won't spoil the ending (not that it's good). I'd give it 2 out of 5 corn cobs, and even that's generous.

The poster is the best part of this movie.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...