[FLASHBACK] 139. Skull-O'-Lantern

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

In honor of my book SKULLS coming out this month, I thought it would be fun to revisit a few of the pieces from my year of skull-making that are featured within...

On October 20, 2007 my skull for the day carved from a pumpkin: 139. Skull-O'-Lantern


Be sure to send me pictures of your skull-y pumpkins from this year!

SKULLS, the Skull-A-Day book is in stores now! Ask for it at your local independent bookstore or online at places like Powell's, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.

A Skull for The Birds

Jirwat S., a graphic designer in Bangkok, Thailand made this fantastic illustration...

[ANNOUNCEMENT] Sugar Skulls for Charity

Folks in the Richmond, Virginia area should consider checking out this Halloween day fund-raising event at local store Fleur Fabrics...

Fleur Fabrics will be decorating sugar skulls all day on Halloween for Day of The Dead. $1 from each skull (plus any surplus) will be donated to Art 180 in [local artist] Jonny Z's name.

We will provide the skulls, paint and decorations for $5 or $3 if you bring your own supplies. There will be information about the tradition of making sugar skulls as well a demos on the actual molding of them!

Fleur Fabrics LLC
119 N Robinson St
RVA 23220
804 612-9198

Skull-A-Day Press: The Free Lance-Star

SKULLS reviewed in the The Free Lance-Star




Check it out here!




www.fredericksburg.com
Thursday, October 30, 2008

Flash Skulls

Tattoo artist Jesse Smith from my hometown of Richmond, Virginia showed off his excellent work...

Metalhead Skull

Web from Bayswater, Victoria, Australia made this cool sculpture from aluminum flashing...

Skull-A-Day Press: MashUp

inRich.com's web video show MashUp interviewed me at a recent book signing.



Watch the entire show HERE.

October 28, 2008
InRich.com - MashUP

[BONUS] Skull-A-Day Stencil In Use

Three more great uses of my original stencil skull!

Staffan did a fantastic job making this bleached stencil shirt. He says, "To get the effect I used Klorin Power Mousse. It's actually a spray-on detergent, but it bleaches
as well since it contains chlorine. I used a newspaper in the T-shirt, but it soaked up the liquid and created the corona effect. You can also see that most of the liquid gathered at the edges. Anyway, I liked the effect."

Joe made this wicked skateboard deck, which he calls "Skullboard"!

And Don in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada spruced up his mailbox for Halloween!

Revealed Skull

Robert Bunda made this excellent illustration...

[BONUS] 368. Tic Tac Skull

At the request of the fine folks at Tagged! (the Barnes & Noble web video show) I made yet another brand new skull this month! This time I was challenged by to make one out of Tic Tac mints which are apparently a necessity for the host Molly Pesce, who has to sit very close to her interview subjects! I obliged by making this piece in under a half hour while the crew watched and filmed a time lapse video, which you can see HERE.


This was definitely one of the fastest skulls I've made, and the fact that I was being watched the entire time definitely added to the stress level.

Sadly they didn't show the part where I wiped them off the table with one sweep of my arm. I bet they were cleaning up Tic Tacs for days...sorry guys!

Skull-A-Day Press: B&N Tagged!

See me interviewed and making a brand new skull on Barnes & Noble's web video show Tagged!







Barnes & Noble Tagged!
October 27, 2008

[FLASHBACK] 140. Body Skull

In honor of my book SKULLS coming out this month, I thought it would be fun to revisit a few of the pieces from my year of skull-making that are featured within...

On October 17, 2007 my skull for the day was painted on my girlfriend's back: 140. Body Skull



Maybe something to consider if you still haven't figured out your Halloween costume for this year!

SKULLS, the Skull-A-Day book is in stores now! Ask for it at your local independent bookstore or online at places like Powell's, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.

Walnut Skulls

Dan Lucas of Portland, Oregon carved this gorgeous skull from black walnut. He says, "The light spot at the top of the skull is an old rectangular nail totally embedded in the wood--I didn't find it until I cut into the block."...


AND

This cool looking skull was carved by Adam Thorpe from walnut as well...

Simulacra Sunday - Round 15

Steve Chapin spotted this skull staring up at him from the American River in Sacramento, California...


Peggy Fussell discovered this skull hiding in her blueberry muffin...



And Gary Nance of Marion, North Carolina discovered this skull while cooking hamburgers! [It took me a moment to see it in the middle of the patty, but once I did it was unmistakable!]...

Skull-A-Day Press: Guardian.co.uk

Skull-A-Day Featured in "Blog roll: Halloween" on guardian.co.uk. Check it out here.






















www.guardian.co.uk
Saturday, October 25, 2008

Skull-A-Day press: Coming Soon

I'll be on the October 27th episode of Barnes & Noble's online show Tagged! Click HERE for a preview.

John Wayne Gacy Skull

Dean Denny of Raleigh, North Carolina made this creepy ink on vellum piece featuring the serial killer John Wayne Gacy and his alter-ego Pogo. It was part of his American serial killers exhibition "Am I Bad?"...

FREE Skull-A-Day Stuff!

I just added a new sidebar item so that you can easily find the free PDFs I made for several of my posts. Here's what I included...

#9 Stencil Skull

#72 Papercraft Skull

#148 Paperdoll Skull

#149 Cocoa Skull (stencil)

#167 Skull-By-Numbers (paint by numbers)

#232 Stylized Stencil Skull

#250 Crosskull Puzzle (crossword)

#258 Cross-Stitch Skull (pattern)

#296 Connect The Skull (connect the dots)

#319 Two-Part Stencil Skull

#349 Secret Skull Wallpaper (stencil)

Did I forget any? Let me know and I'll add them. And of course if use any of these please send me a picture of the results!

Nevermore Skullpture

Mitch Crawford of Las Vegas, Nevada made this fantastic sculpture called "Nevermore"...



Be sure to visit his site and check out his other skulls including a Darth Vader skull!

Skull-A-Day press: Wordy Birds

If you missed my interview with Liz Humes on her program Wordy Birds on WRIR you can listen to the 28 minute program in its entirety below...

Skull in Hell

Tom Sale paints these fun "watercolors from hell" on this insides of old book covers...

SKULLS events: Richmond, Virginia

Just a reminder that there are several upcoming SKULLS book signing events in Richmond, Virginia. If you're in the area I hope you'll stop by and say hi!

SKULLS Signing/Art Opening
Thursday, October 23rd - 7pm-9pm+
@ Chop Suey Tuey (independent bookstore)
2913 West Cary St. Richmond, VA 23221
I'll be signing books and showing a selection of prints from the Skull-A-Day project. Stick around for the after party at New York Deli across the street (where SKULLS will also be available for purchase/signing)!

SKULLS Signing
Saturday, October 25th - 6pm
@ Barnes and Noble Short Pump
11640 W. Broad St. Richmond, VA 23233

SKULLS Signing
Tuesday, October 28th - 4pm
@ Barnes and Noble VCU
1111 W. Broad St. Richmond, VA 23284

SKULLS Signing
Thursday, October 30th - 12:30pm
@ Fountain Books (independent bookstore)
1312 E. Cary St. Richmond, VA 23219
I'll have a few of my original pieces at this informal lunchtime event!

Right now these are the only other signing events I have scheduled. I will hopefully be able to do more events in November/December in other cities. If you have connections at (or own) a local bookstore or make decisions about lecturers for universities or business groups please get in touch!

Pewter Skull

Trevor Gordon made this elegant cane topper from cast pewter...

[BONUS] 367. Letterpress Skull

Well, try as I might, I just can't seem to stop making skulls. I was recently invited by my good friends Dikko and Esther Faust at Purgatory Pie Press to make a skull print as part of their PurgaSquare House of Postcards series...


My piece, "Pimento Mori", is one of 12 cards collaboratively created with various artists & writers. The cards have cuts in them to allow for playful structure building (ala the Eames House of Cards). Dikko hand sets all of the type/images and runs the prints on his vintage letterpress. In my case I worked entirely with antique printers blocks of advertising images that belong to Esther & Dikko. Since the nature of the blocks prohibits them from being overlapped we ran two different sets to get enough coverage to create the image. After I worked out the layout, Dikko carefully put them on the press (adding tiny bits of lead and wood to get them to fit perfectly). No computers were used in the entire process!


Playing with the blocks early on...



And an initial version on the press...


The series is on sale now and can be purchased via their site HERE. I may offer a few of my prints as a prize for a future contest, so keep an eye out.

Skull-A-Day NYC Recap

Thanks again to all the folks who came out to my book launch event in NYC! It was a blast.
Special thanks goes out to Lady Aye who coordinated the event and wowed us with her blockhead and sword swallowing feats (yes, that's me pulling out the sword!), the amazing burlesque performers Nasty Canasta and Little Brooklyn, and Bob for letting us take over his fantastic Bar on A!

Skull Portrait

Al Frank of Austin, Texas made this creepy self-portrait using ms paint and the windows 98 photo-editing software...

Skull Smiley

Jack Morgan has invented his own skull emoticon:

I included the keystrokes for Mac (I assume/hope it's the same on PC) so you can start using it today.

Made your own skull smiley? Include it in a comment below!

UPDATE: You can also try cutting and pasting it here: °..°

Simulacra Sunday - Round 14

velocibadgergirl found this sneaky skull in some deer tracks...



Kalle from Amsterdam, spotted this fellow staring through a window in a kebab shop...


And Arbyn discovered this skull-y drawer pull...

Cyclist Skull

Ellis Nadler from London, shared this excellent illustration from his sketchbook...

[FLASHBACK] 114. Take Out Skull 2 A.K.A. "Happy Skull Family"

In honor of my book SKULLS coming out this month, I thought it would be fun to revisit a few of the pieces from my year of skull-making that are featured within:

On September 25th my skull for the day was cut from used Chinese food containers: 114. Take Out Skull 2 A.K.A. "Happy Skull Family"




I think these would make lovely Halloween decorations with a little LED or candle inside (with the top open of course). If you try it out be sure to send a photo to me!

SKULLS, the Skull-A-Day book is in store now! Ask for it at your local independent bookstore or online at places like Powell's, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.

Skull-A-Day press: Etsy Spotlight

The fine folks at Etsy recently did a nice feature on Skull-A-Day in their online publication The Storque. The best part is I got to pick out 21 skull items on Etsy to share with their readers. In addition I did a little live chat today in which folks got to ask questions and share their own skull picks. It was a lot of fun and the resulting collection will be featured on the home page of the site soon!

Check out the article HERE.


Etsy: The Storque
10/15/08

Painting Grid Skull

S.3 from Montreal, Canada made this fantastic painting "90 skull +1" which is made up of 90 individual 8 x 8inch canvases!....

Voltaire Skull

Amanda Jaeger of Minneapolis, Minnesota made this lovely illustration for a gig poster for a Voltaire concert in her area!

Negative Skull

Wolfgang from Germany made this excellent illustration...

Skull-A-Day press: Interviews

I've done several blog interviews recently, so if you want to know even more about me and my project check these out...

Interviewed by comedian, musician, and all around awesome friend Eliza Skinner.

Interviewed by Glob Glob at The Blog Blog.

Interview for my publisher Lark Books.

Skull-A-Day Press: Me and Martha

In case you missed it when it aired, here's the first segment from The Martha Stewart Show on which I appeared:



You can see the entire episode, including our craft making segment HERE.

Assemblage Skull

Andrey "PukNez" Gubin of StPetersburg Russia made this fun assemblage skull...

Skull-A-Day press: Penthouse reviews SKULLS!

The November 2008 issue of Penthouse magazine (on stands now) features a review of my book SKULLS!


They call me "scintillatingly inventive"!

If you get the issue you can tell your friends you read it for the articles!

Chernobyl Skull

Jung Norbert from Germany made this nifty skull illusion illustration titled "Chernobyl Disaster"...

Simulacra Sunday - Round 13

Scherke in Germany, says, "A few weeks ago I was jogging at a lake in our area, and while crossing a bridge I noticed a herd of sheep standing on the meadow below. The sheep stood very close to another, surrounded by a fence, and I thought, that would be a great image, if you could make them form a skull. The next time I crossed the bridge I couldn't believe my eyes: Those animals did what I wished for! So I took a picture with my cellphone (sadly the quality is a bit low) and, because there were no black sheep around, let a shepherd called Photoshop do the rest..."



Eric Helms, says, "I've seen these vans pretty frequently on the streets of San Francisco and thought you might appreciate the likeness they have to a skull. I did some research and found they are called the 'Metro' and were made by International Harvester some time in the 1940s-1950s"...



And Jordan Foudray found this oil stain skull while walking in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio...

It's not a SKULLS book release party until...

Last night was my SKULLS book release party at Fallout in Richmond, Virginia. The evening started out great, there were lots of fun skull-adorned folks and I signed a few books. However, just before it was time for me to judge the skull costume contest my friend dislocated her knee while dancing. We ended up having to take an ambulance ride to the emergency room at 2am. The funny thing is the ambulance driver had just read an article about my book and was very enthusiastic about Skull-A-Day and wanted to know all about it on the ride over! Of course everyone in the emergency room was amused to have a skeleton in their midst. If you're wondering, my friend is feeling OK, though her knee will take a few weeks to heal. I'll post pictures from the party once I get them.

Oh and her make-up is based on the fantastic work of Sylvia Ji.

Skull Pile

Jared Moran of Gulfport, Mississippi, made this excellent painting...

SKULLS event: New York City

This just in...
SKULLS release party this coming Friday, October 17th in New York City!

@ Bar on A 170 Ave. A, NYC
6:30-9:30 PM

There will be peformances by well-known burlesque performers
Nasty Canasta and Little Brooklyn
as well as the sideshow stylings of the infamous Lady Aye!

And of course I'll be signing copies of my book SKULLS!

Plus drink specials!
And no cover!

**This is currently my only scheduled signing in NYC so don't miss out!**

UPDATE: I will have a small quantity of books for sale at the event! But of course if you've bought it already, definitely bring it along for me to sign.

Grid Skull Puzzles!

Just in time for the howl-idays I've partnered with the awesome folks at Cardboard Safari to make a limited edition puzzle kit version of my #113 Grid Skull. Made from laser cut recycled/recyclable cardboard, the skulls come in white and natural brown (which you can easily customize with markers or paint), and are limited to only 500 signed and numbered pieces of each. Get yours today HERE!