Susannah's Skulls

Suzannah Eller, from Fairfax, VA submitted this two skulls she doodled.

I like the cheerful cartoonish quality to both pieces. For the top one, the use of shading with the simplified shapes has a painterly old world look. The 4 curls remind me of octopus legs, though they don't have skulls. I also just like swirls in general. I can imagine this being on a iron work fence somewhere here in Richmond, VA. Iron work is one thing we are famous for. Maybe, it would be on an old store sign for a mortuary. For the second one, I like the use of the black, white and grey skull and bones on top of the bright pop of pink. It really makes the skull and bones stand out better. The Xs on the mouth remind me of mumification and binding for some reason, though I have yet to see mouth stitching through a skull. Though there was that crazy diet where people got their mouth's wired shut and only drank through a straw. That is an odd torture that seemed well accepted at the time. It's odd to step back and see the body modifications that are widely accepted (like plastic surgery) vs more "taboo" ones like piercings and tattoos...which have been around much longer than modern plastic surgery. For more of Suzannah Eller's work, go to her blog.

Skull-A-Day Press: United Skull of America in Chicago

A giant wooden version of my United Skull of America is on display at the International Museum of Surgical Sciences as part of the Street Anatomy group exhibition. It's up through November 19th, but if you won't be in Chicago during that time, you can get a sneak peek at it in this nice review from Art Talk Chicago...

See the full post HERE.

And if you really love the image, why not consider buying a T-shirt or poster of it, both are available in the Skull-A-Day store!

Back to Skull Sale!

In honor of the kids heading back to school this month I've put our two "educational" products on sale in the Skull-A-Day store!

The United Skull of America T-shirt (normally $22) is marked down to $18!

 

and the United Skull of America Poster (normally $25) is marked down to $20!

Both items feature the United Skull of America which has all 50 US states in proportional size to one another. It's a great way to learn about geography and test your knowledge of state shapes. Every student and classroom needs one!

The sale ends at the end of the month so don't miss out! Plus don't forget you can also get Ornamental Skull prints and Skull Appreciation Day buttons in the store as well!

C-Rations: LXVI

This week’s offering is a Chalkboard

“Intro to Skulls 401” 5" x 7" Chalk on slate board

Detention C says:

Most of the kids in my area are heading back to school today and in commemoration of that I thought it was time for me to also get back to skull. I have some extra credit projects from the summer that I will be filing in their proper spots as their images becomes available to me. Have a great Skull Year and remember us if you happen to do anything skull related in your art classes this year.

My weekly offering of original skull designs were posted on Mondays in year 3.0, and now I am posting them each Wednesday during year 4.0 . Knowing the personal pressures of a creating a piece each week, I tip my hat to the massive one-a-day project that was undertaken by The Skullmaster, during the original Skull-A-Day year.

Hopefully you will find some nourishment in my weekly offerings, but if you need more nourishment during the week, you may always Friend me or Follow me.

Office Work Skull

Today’s skull was submitted by Emory Ensign of Sacramento, CA.



Cost Analysis C says:

...and you see about half-way down the page how this project is going to be the death of us. I really like this, it is as if you are offering your criticism of the project in a non-verbal way. I also like that you have reminded us of a style of often overlooked art, that of the office meeting doodle. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share this office creation with you.

Skull-A-Day Press: Brains Skull in the UK

My Mütter's Skull of Brains was featured in the UK's Telegraph as part of their Week in Pictures!...

Flamingo Skull

New Zealand based artist Jarad Bryant has done a great job of showing the darker side of this usually colorful and elegant bird.

I saw a shirt somewhere that said that pink is the new black. I know pink has it's place in our world of colors, but I am still a bigger fan of the dark mysteries that black brings us. Excellent work on showing us the darker side of the flamingo, Jarad. I'd be more than willing to stick one of these in my lawn.

[CONTEST] Win a Set of Sin in Linen Pillow Shams

The wonderful people at Sin in Linen would like to give away a set of Limited Edition Light Pink Skull and Crossbones Sham Sets to three lucky Skull-A-Day fans. The shams are 20" x 26", 100% Cotton Sateen, 300 Thread Count and Machine Washable. There are two shams per set!

Limited Edition Light Pink Skull and Crossbones Sham Set

Since school is starting soon and there are lots of dorm that would benefit from some Sin in Linen items, to be entered in the drawing just leave a comment below saying if you took your skull to school, what would its favorite subject be?

[NOTE: If you're reading this on Facebook, be sure to leave your comment on the original Skull-A-Day.com post if you want to be actually entered in the contest]

IMPORTANT: Don't forget to include a way to contact you (either an e-mail in the post OR make sure your Blogger profile has an e-mail link for you on it).

You have until just Midnight Eastern Time September 13th to enter so don't delay! The contest is over! Thanks to everyone who participated.

NOTE: If you are out of the US you will need to pay for the additional postage to ship them to you.

Of course, you don't have to wait till the end of the contest to get your own Sin in Linen Shams. They are also offering a 15% discount for use on their website, Sin in Linen with coupon code SKULL15, until 10/01/2010. There have lots of great designs in bedding, bathroom, kitchen and apparel. I highly suggest checking out all of their wares. They are all fabulous.

Franky Skull Doll

Marian Gárriz Jiménez, from Barcelona, Spain submitted this little guy. "I like to draw and sew cloth dolls, one of them is a Frankenstein's skeleton."

Since I was a kid, I've been a fan of what mom calls "Ugly Dolls". She is 100% responsible for this. I've collected quite a few. I love the hand made quality of them and this one is no different. I like the variation in stitches. Being that this is inspired by Frankenstein's Monster, it's great that this little guy is hand made, like the monster in Frankenstein. Marian other dolls are just as cute. You can see more of her cute dolls here.

Sunday Simulacra - Version 4.14

Our awesome skull hunters found these three hanging out on walls.

Scott P. McBride found his at "a BBQ last week at my friends house in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I didn't notice it until the sun went down and the lights for the back yard went on that there was a glob of mortar on the wall that looked like a a skull... if you were positioned under and to the side of it."

Benoit Godde found this one on a roof top garden.


André Henriques found this coat hanger at a restaurant at Amarante, Portugal while having dinner.

Great job skull hunters finding these skulls lurking on the walls. You always hear the expression. "To be a fly on the wall...", now I want to be a skull on the wall of where you all adventure.


Keep sending those pictures in to our submissions address. Just keep in mind that since we only post simulacra once a week it might take a little longer than normal for it to be posted.

Scratch Shop Skull

Garrett Weider is an artist from Cleveland, OH who found our blog via the good folks at Mental Floss. Like a lot of you, he liked what he saw, so he scratched out this skull using photoshop.

I really like this piece for it's simplicity in colors and for the way it counteracts that with all of the seemingly random lines that come together to bring us the ever familiar image that we all know and love. Thanks, Garrett!

[Flashback Friday] 32. Interlocking Skull

Welcome to another addition of Flashback Friday.** This year the guest editors, Azurafae, Tatman, and myself, Citizen Agent, are taking turns counting down our personal favorite 17 skulls from the Original 365.25 Year. So please join us as we visit the archives and add our additional commentary on some of the original pieces.

#5: 32. Interlocking Skull

C. Harvey says:

It was almost inevitable that this one would show up. However, most of you were probably guessing that this would be #1 not #5. Since this one now has taken on a life of its own, let me share with you a more humble beginning.

As the original project started its second month, Noah and I developed a sort of rapport I would try to encourage him with my commentary, and he would sometimes have a comment on my commentary only encouraging me further. I fell in love with the idea of using this image as wrapping paper and I was thinking about sending Noah a little present wrapped in it. (see the original comments here) I printed out #32 large enough for the purpose of wrapping paper and tacked it to a bulletin board until I would be ready to send it.

On July 8, 2007 I was sitting at my computer staring at the bulletin board, and was struck by the proverbial lightning. The #32 that I printed out a couple of days earlier was the same size as my head. I cut it out punched a couple of holes and it worked perfectly as a mask. “C” was ready to go public, I took a couple of pictures and sent them off.

The next day Noah posted this on Skull-A-Day. It was the green light that singled to me “lets keep this going” and so it did for the rest of the year. I know making a skull a day was hard, but needing to come up with a comment a day was not so easy either. Sadly I didn't earn my 365 merit badge, but I gave it a good effort.

Now you ask: Whatever happened to Citizen Agent’s original mask? The answer: It became part of the #366 installation and I would guess it is now part of the Skull-A-Day archives, maybe if I am lucky it is framed hanging on a wall in a Skull-A-Day Cafe.

And now you know -- the rest of the story- Gooooooood Day!

**Flashback Friday was a weekly countdown of the fan selected top 52 skulls of Skull-A-Day 1.o. Each week during year 3.0 The Skullmaster posted the 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 3.0, all 52 can be found here.

Skull Hood

Kim from Club RUB London (NSFW/K) sent us this picture of a Mexican Day of the Dead looking hood she did with “Club RUB's 14th Birthday event” in mind.

Kim said: “I made this hood with my own fair hands. I started with a black lycra hood. Using a polystyrene head, I use a square of white felt and pinned the cut-out skull-shape on the lycra hood and hand-sewn it into place. Using a glue gun I stuck crystals in the teeth area. On the forehead, in between the eyes, I stuck a paper filigree heart that came off a Valentine's card my fella gave me. The rose head garland was made using a wide plastic headband from any £1 shop. The red roses I got from a discount shop. A hot glue gun is an absolute ‘must-have’ as it secures the roses in place instantly. I added crystals to the tips of the roses using Superglue. Alternatively you can add glitter glue to the tips of the roses.”


Censored C says:

As a mask aficionado, I truly admire your work on this one. I never thought about using a lyrca hood before as a base, thank you for that tip. I really love the amount of thought that went into making this piece, you captured the look very well and I can imagine you blending in flawlessly amongst traditional decorations. Thank you for subitting your work, and we would love to see more of this theme from you the future.

Dia de la Abby: #14 - Skull Make-up

I recently went to a Doomsday themed event. I wanted to do something dramatic for my costume, so I decided to make a skull on my face using make-up.

This is my 1st attempt at doing full face make-up and it took me an hour, but it was worth it. If you would like to learn how I did my make-up, I wrote a handy tutorial. This was a costume where I made or altered almost every piece of my costume, which is odd because I normally just take pieces from my wacky wardrobe and mix them to make a costume. Though, even with that, most have at least one piece I made. With Halloween rapidly and happily approaching, I'll be writing a lot more costume tutorials and posting them on my blog, though I'm sure many will be skull related, as that is something I obvious like a lot...as if you didn't already know that.

Every week in the 4.0 year, I will be post my own Dia de la Abby posts as well as a tutorial with instructions on how I made my piece. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on Twitter.

Darkside Playing Cards

Greg Santelices submitted his version of a playing card.


My daughter is an avid game player. We play lots of games together, but I favor card games. These cards would add some darkness to our playful game of War or Go-Fish. I wish this was a full set, I would love to see Greg's designs for the rest of the cards.

Skull-A-Day Press: Brains Skull part III

Even more kind press about my recent Mütter's Skull of Brains!...

 Wired Article

Alltop-Holy Kaw! post

Trend Hunter post

Pumpkin Skulls

With today being the unofficial start of Fall as well as the Halloween Season we bring you a pair of carved skulls from ToneCold in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada who told us: “Halloween is my favorite time of year. I love dressing up, scaring people, eating candy….and carving pumpkins! I carved these two a year ago, and in my opinion, these were two of the better results I’ve come up with. I thought they are perfect for the Skull-a-Day Blog!”



Carving C says:

What a great way to kick off the start of this fall season. Your designs are wonderful, I don’t believe I have ever been able to achieve such detail in any of the carvings I have done. Thank you for taking the time to submit your work, it will serve as an inspiration to all of us in this holiday season. For more inspiration, check out some other pumpkins from our other readers here.

[BONUS] 381. Luck of The Draw Skull

For the second year in a row I've been asked to donate a piece of art to the fundraiser Luck of The Draw which benefits the Visual Arts Center here in Richmond, VA. It's a fun event where you get your choice of unframed art for just a $100, but the trick is that you don't know who made the work (since it is signed on the back) and the order in which you get to choose a piece is based on a random selection process. If you're going to be in the Richmond area on September 23rd and you'd like an original Skull-A-Day piece at a bargain price this is your chance. And even if you don't get my art, you'll still get something great and help out a worthy organization. So what does my piece look like? Well, that would be telling, but I'm sure you can guess the subject matter! Once the event is over I'll reveal it here.

Get more details or buy advance tickets for the HERE.

Redskin Skull

Paul Nichols pedals his way into today's post with this nifty decal that he has designed for his cycle company, Severe Cycles Inc.



This skull looks like he's in search of an adrenaline rush from a ride on a Severe Cycle. Hopefully his wheelie through our blog gets him some kicks. Thanks for sharing, Paul.

Skull Studies

Mary Sue Muscarella of Mary Sue Tattoo, submitted three great pieces. Here is her explanation of each.

The first is a sugar skull that I sculpted out of Plastalina.

The next is a charcoal drawing of a monkey skull.

The last is a study of multiple angles of a monkey skull in charcoal.

I like how each of these are different, yet incorporate the same subject, a skull. Sculptures always fascinate me, because they are a hands on approach to art. With clay, you have to use your hands to mold the medium to your desired form. This clay interpretation of a traditional sugar skull is neat to see, since sugar skulls are one of my favor parts of Day of the Dead. The charcoal drawings of the monkey skull are fascinating. Primates are my favorite animals...well next to Giraffes...because they are very similar to humans. Here you can clearly see the differences that a monkey skull has to a human skull. The head looks more elongated and with more crevices and shaping. I love the use of shading to show off these details. I have a replica of a human skull that I use for many Skull-A-Day projects, so I like seeing how someone else makes art using a physical skull for reference. All of these are wonderful. Keep making more beautiful art!