At the Edge of the Wood a Summit

Click the image for a full-size fright!

Autumn hit with a vengeance last night. I’ve been wearing my shorts and shirt-sleeves as long as possible, resisting the encroaching cold weather, but last night I had to give in and dig my jacket out of the murky depths of the closet. The one bright spot in this sudden seasonal switch (let’s hear it for alliteration!) is that Halloween is right around the corner. Which means I can go nuts scribbling out spooks and spirits. Not that I really needed an excuse.

I think one of the reasons artists love this holiday so much is that we can do crazy fun images of things that go bump (or nastier, wetter, more blood-curdling sounds) in the night while playing around with other themes. Like what happens when the ghosts of man meet a spirit of the forest. Can a meeting between such extremes end well?

As for me, I love doing these limited color dark/light pieces because they give me the chance to draw. By which I mean, really draw; what with all those little details and trying to make the image read clearly with only two layers. In the end, the paper itself adds so much to the piece, like the happily semi-accidental misty moonbeams in the bottom left corner.

Illustration Friday