Skull-A-Day Press: How Not To Act Old

How Not To Act Old included Skull-A-Day as one of their Halloween related non-old activities calling it "really entertaining"!

Skull-A-Day Press: HandEye

My friend Paul from Dude Craft did a nice write up on Skull-A-Day for HandEye...



Read the entire article HERE.

[BONUS] 2 For 1 Halloween Pumpkins

Since Halloween holds such a special place in the hearts of many Skull-A-Day readers I assumed a bonus post was in order. Besides, I couldn't go out on the Crappy Halloween note...no offense to your great work, Mr. Gary Colins.

The first pumpkin comes from prior submitter, Greg Santicles. He made this for a company Halloween party. It's good to see that some companies still know which holidays to throw parties for.



And this second pairing is even more additional bonus with a built in 2 for 1 because Halloween rocks like that! Coming simply from 'W' at thinkingbricks.com is this nice pumpkin pair telling us "Attached is a picture of 2 life-sized skulls I made for Halloween, one is a programmable mechanical LEGO skull and the other is a Jack O'Lantern simply made from 2 misshapen, discarded pumpkins. The top pumpkin was shaped like an apple, the bottom pumpkin's top was severely sunken. It reminds me of the Ghost Rider's flaming SKULL (from Marvel Comics). It TALKS too... not the pumpkin, the other one!"



Check out this special Halloween message straight from the creator.

Clearly skulls are the reason for the season! HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!

Send To Phone

Send To Phone

[BONUS] Skull Stencil In Use - Halloween Edition

Bob Hammang of Waynesville, OH did a fantastic job of using my Cocoa Stencil to make his jack-o-lantern this year...


Happy Skulloween everyone!

Crappy Halloween

Those of us at Skull-A-Day and Gary Collins wish you a Crappy Halloween!



Just kidding! The "Countdown To Halloween" is finally over! HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO EVERYONE!

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Skull-A-Day Press: Studio 360

I'm honored to be included in the latest episode of Studio 360, a fantastic public radio show out of New York. You can listen to my segment on skulls here...



Though I recommend checking out the entire episode as well.

[BONUS] Night At The Skull Museum

This past weekend the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts hosted "Night At The Art Museum", a Halloween themed event for kids featuring spooky crafts, stories, games, and more. Even though I was away and couldn't participate in person I was glad that Skull-A-Day could still be a part of the night. A slideshow of my skulls were shown to the kids and then they were given an assortment of craft materials to make their own skulls. As usual the results were terrific...

Corinne - Age 5

Max - Age 5 1/2

Gabriel - Age 5

Colin - Age 6

Donovan - Age 3

William - Age 3

River - Age 6

Wyatt - Age 4 1/2

Carrington - Age 5

Jackson - Age 6 1/2

Nikos - Age 5

Kyah - Age 10

Ian - Age 4 1/2

Alexis - Age 6

Liam - Age 6

Caleb - Age 6

Eva - Age 8 3/4

Lulu - Age 5

Nick - Age 8

Jen - Age 38

Carla - Age 7

Annie - Age 7

Annie - Age 7

Felix - Age 8

Jeremiah - Age 7

Greta - Age 5

Carla - Age 7 & Mariel

Amena - Age 12

Shoa - Age 9

Unlabled

Thanks to all the kids (little and big) for participating and Megan for suggesting that Skull-A-Day be a part of the event! And hey, if your own little ones make some skulls this Halloween (or anytime really) do send them in!

[Flashback Friday] 224. Butternut Skull

Flashback Friday is a weekly countdown of the fan selected top 52 skulls of Skull-A-Day 1.0. Each week I'll be posting an original skull along with some additional commentary in order from lowest to highest rated, with the #1 skull appearing in the last week of year 3 of the project...

#31: 224. Butternut Skull

One of my favorite things during the project was letting materials dictate the shape of the skull. In this case, the cartoon-y dropped jaw just made sense for the elongated shape of the squash. A friend said he thought he was having a screen problem when he scrolled the page to see this image and the jaw kept going and going as if the pixels were repeating!

Speaking of carving...be sure to send in some pictures of your own skull-y pumpkins (and other homemade decorations) that you've made for Halloween and we'll show them here!

Oh and if you're wondering here's what happens when you let a butternut squash dry out for several months.

Costumed Calavera

The artist known as Church from Los Angeles, CA made these traditional Calavera in Halloween costumes. She said: “Thanks for the Groovy Website! I have been a reader for a about a year now. I finally got up the guts to start selling my Calavera Creations on Etsy. I specialize in traditional Calavera but also some geeky ones...”


Memoria C says:

I can't believe how quickly October has skipped by. I am not sure of your local customs, but where I am from the night before Halloween is referred to as “Mischief Night”. I hope your little band of calaveras are not heading out to play tricks in the neighborhood. Thank you for submitting your work, and we look forward to following your progress in the future.


“Countdown To Halloween”
1 more day to go...

Skull-A-Day Press: Philadelphia City Paper

There's a nice mention of my upcoming Halloween talk at the Mütter Museum in the Philadelphia City Paper.




Read the whole thing HERE.
(And no, I don't know what "silk bubbles" are either or where they got that from!)

And the Skull Cufflinks winners are...

Congratulations to Scotty & Slave Barb who were the randomly selected winners of the Skull Cufflinks Giveaway contest! Thanks again to everyone who participated, I loved all of your creative answers!

Don't forget that even if you didn't win you can still get your own nifty cufflinks from Linkyourshirt.com.

Skull-A-Day on Tour: Sandusky Recap

I just got back from a lovely weekend in Sandusky, Ohio where the fine folks at the Sandusky Cultural Center curated an all skull art show inspired by my project which they called, appropriately enough, "Skull A Day". I sent 15 of the original skulls for them to display along side of art by 17 invited Northern Ohio artists. There was even a display in the entryway of skeletal work by local middle and high school students! All of the art was fantastic and there was a great crowd at the opening (which featured skull cookies and chocolates). I signed books, gave a brief talk on the project and met a bunch of really nice people.

Here are a few images from the installation:



The Kotkowski family drove over an hour to check the show out and have me sign their skull!...


Fellow artists the Josh and Callie had me at their house for a lovely dinner and not only did I leave them a skull on their table (made of the cute holiday confetti that decorated it)...


...but I also discovered a cute face in the remnants of my desert plate. Do you see it?

Thanks again to Charles T. Mayer who coordinated the whole thing and was my kind host.

If you're in the area do stop by, the show is up through November 29th.

Off to Philadelphia next...

Pirate Skull

Sjoerd Jorritsma from the Netherlands brings us his interpretation of a pirate flag.



Definitely a great new version of an old classic, Sjoerd. Classic Black and White skulls are still some of the best.

And some of the best times are on Halloween. You couldn't have forgotten about the "Countdown To Halloween". It's only 2 days away!

Skull-A-Day Press: Funcoast.com

I was interviewed about the Skull-A-Day show at the Sandusky Cultural Center by the folks at Funcoast.com...



Read the entire thing HERE.

[BONUS] 372. Think Skull

Since 2001 I've participated in a fantastic biennial art show here in Richmond, VA called Think Small. All pieces can be no larger than 3 inches by 3 inches (by 3 inches if it's a sculpture) and over a hundred artists participate. Two years ago I actually made one of the original skulls as a test for what I made for the show. This year I was inspired to make another skull (using a technique I'd tried before). This is machine stitching on fabric, I use the reverse button as a way to draw with the sewing machine...


The show opens November 6th in Richmond, but you can see many of the pieces online as well. Details are HERE.