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Halloween - Best dressed zombie family 2 years running

Date night! Halloween is our most favorite time of the year. It's where we adults can dip into the tickle trunk without judgement. Lol ;) As a family we look forward to participating in our communities zombie walk and this year was no exception. If I had more time our outfits would have had a little more thought put in but with only 30 minutes and 4 people, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.   This little man rocked it this year with the gunshot through his eye ball. I created this effect with a paper cupcake liner, cut to size, and adhered it to his face using liquid latex. I built up the edges using latex, single ply tissue and a little fake skin to blend the edges. The inside was painted black and the outside was layers of bruising (yellow, green, red, blue) then the fake blood was dropped on and allowed to drip down his face. Fake blood was also splashed on his face. This gives the illusion of a very realistic freshly fed zombie.    We also grabbed one of the z

Old car rotting in the woods reference photos

We came across this old car rotting in the woods at Cottonwood Lake BC. It seemed to have run off the road, rolled, and came to rest at the bottom of the gully. Its motor was found a few feet from the vehicle and I'm sure this old car definatly has a story to tell. Feel free to use this pictures in your work, but please give credit where credit is due.

UNDER PAINTING IN WATERCOLOR - Grisaille underpainting technique

I chose to use a grisaille technique for the painting of this old man in watercolor. Grisaille is an old technique oil painters used to develop a monochromatic value study, kinda like a road map for your painting. This later served as a base for the addition of  transparent layers of color. For this painting, I chose to use a limited palette of dioxazine purple, Naples yellow,  alizarin crimson for the face with a pop or 2 of transparent orange and green gold at the end. **This is not a palette I would choose again and here's why. Naples yellow doesn't pack any punch and is opaque. This is not a great mix when you need to cover or mute the purple. Diox purple is also strong stainer, making it difficult to remove pigment. Sometimes this is ok, but didn't really help on this piece. I started this gentleman with an ink sketch that can be found in my Strathmore watercolor 400 series journal. I love the quality of paper in this journal but I wish it would lay flat when I am