S K Y L A R K I N G: 31 Days of Halloween

Showing posts with label 31 Days of Halloween. Show all posts

Monday, October 31, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN -- Day 31

Let's go out the way we came in:

Happy Halloween by Matt Dixon.

Matt Dixon is a UK artist who has a website, a blog and a Deviantart gallery.

And that's all she wrote! Happy Halloween everyone!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Since it's release in 1962 when it became no. 1 in 8 weeks, Bobby "Boris" Pickett is the only active performer whose original recording reached "the top 100" on three different occasions.

Over the years Monster Mash has been heard on every top 40 and oldies station on the planet and such popular T.V. shows as the Simpsons, Cheers, Roseanne, Doogie Howser and CNN, not to mention its use in several movies including "Halloween III" and Sweetheart's Dance." Its co-creator and vocalist, Bobby "Boris"Pickett, has been hailed as the Guy Lombardo of Halloween and Monster Mash has become the national anthem of this fun holiday.

How did it all come about? Well, according to TheMonsterMash.com:

Lenny sat down at the piano and began futzing with various four-chord progressions and I stood next to the piano. Like me, Lenny was a major horror movie fan from childhood. He loved Bela Lugosi as Dracula. He knew I had the Boris Karloff voice pretty nailed, although in reptrospect, I feel that what I actually had was a very cartoonish rendition of that wonderful actor's voice. In any case, we'd both seen how the audiences had loved it when I was with the group and we'd sing “Little Darlin'” and I did the monologue in the middle of the song in Boris's voice. We agreed that the Karloff voice was the most obvious one to tell the story. And what was the story?

“Well,” Lenny suggested, “Maybe the Frankenstein monster should start a dance craze.”

“That's it!” I said.

...and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here is a video of Bobby Pickett performing the song from a TV special from the late 60's:

Friday, October 28, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 28

ALL HALLOW'S EVE

Halloween was originally All Hallow's Eve, a Catholic ceremony held the day before All Hallow's Day (or All Saint's Day) on November 1st. All Hallow's Day was a time for Christians to say prayers for the souls of the dead who were stuck in Purgatory.

Although some people claim that Halloween derives from the Pagan celebration of Samhain, in fact, All Hallow's Eve has no connection with that pagan celebration at all.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore:

"Certainly Samhain was a time for festive gatherings, and medieval Irish texts and later Irish, Welsh, and Scottish folklore use it as a setting for supernatural encounters, but there is no evidence that it was connected with the dead in pre-Christian times, or that pagan religious ceremonies were held."

Even the Jack-O-Lantern of today with it's frightening visage has its origins in the Catholic festival. According to the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink and Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, by Nicholas Rogers:

"Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. For instance, the carving of jack-o'-lanterns springs from the souling custom of carving turnips into lanterns as a way of remembering the souls held in purgatory. The turnip has traditionally been used in Ireland and Scotland at Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which are both readily available and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips."

According to Mary Reed Newland writing at Catholic Education.org:

Begging at the door grew from an ancient English custom of knocking at doors to beg for a "soul cake" in return for which the beggars promised to pray for the dead of the household. Soul cakes, a form of shortbread — and sometimes quite fancy, with currants for eyes — became more important for the beggars than prayers for the dead, it is said. Florence Berger tells... a legend of a zealous cook who vowed she would invent soul cakes to remind them of eternity at every bite. So she cut a hole in the middle and dropped it in hot fat, and lo — a doughnut. Circle that it is, it suggests the never-ending of eternity. Truth or legend, it serves a good purpose at Halloween.

The refrains sung at the door varied from "a soul cake, a soul cake, have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake," to the later:

Soul, soul, an apple or two,
If you haven't an apple, a pear will do,
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for the Man Who made us all.

Here they had either run out of soul cakes or plain didn't care. Charades, pantomimes, and little dramas, popular remnants of the miracle and morality plays of the Middle Ages, commonly rehearsed the folk in the reality of life after death and the means to attain it. It is probably from these that the custom of masquerading on Halloween had its beginning. The folly of a life of selfishness would be the message pantomimed by the damned; the torment of waiting, the message of the souls from Purgatory; the delights of the beatific vision, the message of the Heaven-sent.

So when you hear someone opine that Halloween is a Satanic holiday and should be banned, or crazy talk about turning it into "Jesus-ween", you can tell them that All Hallow's Eve is a Christian Celebration and saying otherwise is disrespecting 500 years of Catholic tradition.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 27

Elsa Lanchester - The original Halloween Hottie!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 26

Halloween Party Poster by Serge Birault.

Serge Birault, otherwise known as PapaNinja, is a French artist who has a website, a blog and a Deviantart gallery.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 25

Broom of Doom by Matt Dixon.

Matt Dixon is a UK artist who has a website, a blog and a Deviantart gallery.

Monday, October 24, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 24

DON'T FEAR THE REAPER

Classic 70's rock band Blue Oyster Cult (http://www.blueoystercult.com/) are no stranger to songs with a fantasy bent. Here they are performing Don't Fear the Reaper from a live gig from back in the day.

I don't know about anybody else but this song still sends a chill up my spine every time I hear it.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 23

Dead Flesh Doesn't Tan (NSFW)

Hey! it's a world premiere! I painted this specifically for the 31 Days of Halloween. It's a silly picture and most certainly NSFW. If the sight of naked white flesh offends you, then don't scroll down -- just click away.

Here is the whole picture:

Saturday, October 22, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 22

BASIL GOGOS - THE MAN WHO PAINTED MONSTERS

I have posted this before but it seemed appropriate to run it again and make it part of the 31 Days...

If you're like me (and a surprising number of people are) then you love monsters. And where would you have come by your love of monsters? Well, I think perhaps this little magazine might have something to do with it:

That's right, FAMOUS MONSTERS, Forrest. J. Ackerman's beloved magazine which featured covers that featured wonderful portraits of famous monsters most of which were painted by Basil Gogos. So let's read what Wikipedia has to say about Basil Gogos:

"During the 1960s, Basil Gogos provided a steady stream of illustrations for a variety of New York-based publications. The majority of his work during this period was for men's adventure magazines for which he painted many scenes of World War II battles, jungle perils and crime as well as cheesecake portraits of beautiful women. However, Gogos' greatest impact as an illustrator was the work he did for Warren Publishing.

Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, created by publisher James Warren and editor Forrest J Ackerman, premiered in 1958 and was aimed at young readers who were then discovering the classic horror films of the '30s and '40s on television. The magazine's covers were usually eye-catching close-ups of horror movie characters. Gogos' first work for Warren was the cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland #9 in 1960 featuring an impressionistic portrait of Vincent Price from House of Usher painted in shades of red, yellow and green. Over the next two decades, he created almost 50 covers for Famous Monsters, many of which have become iconic images of that period. Gogos also provided cover art for several other Warren magazines including Creepy, Eerie, Spaceman, Wildest Westerns and The Spirit.

Basil Gogos' Famous Monsters cover art featured most of the classic horror characters such as The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, King Kong, Godzilla and The Creature from the Black Lagoon and popular horror actors like Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Gogos often captured his subjects in an array of vivid colors using a technique in which the artist imagined the character bathed in colors from multiple light sources. He enjoyed painting monsters more than most of his more conventional assignments because of the freedom he was given and because of the challenge of painting such unusual characters which he endeavoured to portray as both frightening and sympathetic.

In the late 1970s, Gogos gave up full time commercial illustration to devote himself more to his original goal of doing fine art. He produced personal art pieces in watercolor and other media, while earning his livelihood as a photo retoucher in the ad department of United Artists. While there, he also did occasional illustrations for movie posters. Gogos later moved into advertising where he produced presentation sketches and storyboards for commercials for a major ad agency.

Due to a resurgence of interest in classic horror films and collectibles, Gogos returned to the horror genre in the 1990s. During this time, new Gogos monster portraits appeared on trading cards, lithographs and the covers of Monsterscene magazine. He has also painted CD covers for rock stars Rob Zombie, The Misfits and Electric Frankenstein."

Thursday, October 20, 2011

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN - DAY 20

EYE OF THE ZOMBIE

Eye of the Zombie is a 1986 album by American singer/songwriter John Fogerty. The video that accompanied the title track always managed to freak me out for some reason.