76. Mr. Potato Skull Head Stamp Pattern

Potato Stamp on Recycled Paper. I haven't made a potato stamp since preschool! It's still just as fun. Had to do this early morning as I'm now offf to N.C.!

T-Skull #1: United Skull of America (SOLD OUT)

SORRY LIMITED EDITION T-SKULL #1 IS SOLD OUT!

75. Expanded T-Skull

T-shirt cut with Xacto. Attempt #3, I think if I did about a dozen more I could perfect this technique, but I really need to get some actual work done today!

UPDATE: Per request here's a hi-res JPEG (option-click or right-click to download) of the pattern as it ended up. I recommend experimenting on paper and modifying as you see fit.

74. Introducing Bubbles the Skull

Arranged Soap Bubbles in Water. Beware of dish washing!

P.S. I forgot to mention, this skull was inspired by a comment Jen made on In The New!

73. Watercolor Dog Skull

Watercolor on cold pressed 140lb paper (9" x 12"). I decided today was the right time for another foray into painting with watercolor. This one is based on the photo I took of my dog skull for the collection mosaic.

72. Papercraft Skull (with Articulated Jaw)

Cut & Folded Custom Paper Toy. The jaw moves via a tab that sticks out the back.


This papercraft skull is downloadable as a DIY pattern PDF HERE. Make & decorate your own! (and of course send me a picture). Just print onto or glue to card stock, then cut, fold, and tape or glue via the directions.

Inspired by the great papercraft patterns from Readymech, NiceBunny, and Speakerdog. Via Home of The Skulls.

UPDATE 10/25: I've removed an unnecessary "glue here" X from the back of the jaw and replaced the PDF on the server with the new version.

71. Paint Scratch Skull

Scratched Paint on Porcelain. There's an old bathtub in my house that gets used for cleaning brushes and I just noticed it has these two circular marks from paint rollers left to dry on end. How could I resist making them into the eyes of a cute skull?

70. Shoelace Skull

Arranged Found Shoelace. One of the things about this project is that I end up doing stuff I definitely wouldn't normally do, like touching a dirty bit of a shoelace in the parking lot of the restaurant where I ate brunch today. I got a few weird looks, but one of the kitchen staff came out, took a look at what I was doing and decided he needed a picture too!...

Braincase V

And the awesome submissions just keep pouring in! My goal is to get about 10 up a week, so it may take 2-3 weeks for new things to get posted, but rest assured I'll get them up here eventually. So, without further ado...

Yvette made this cute little ipod cover as her first attempt at knitting from a pattern.










Rita sent in her great collection of skulls, including a really lovely painting by her husband Christopher Muniec.










Ahboy sent this eerie photo of The Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.








Artist Christopher Locke sent this terrific piece he created as part of a series of works made out of actual cut-up U.S. currency.








Andrew Macrae made this super-cool typewriter skull using a 1965 Olympia SG3.











Mark Conahan made this awesome Tauga nut carving!





















Jan sent in this spiffy little Skulb!









Junior sent in this exciting jumbo paper skull!











Jeff D. made this nifty sugar cube skull!











Greg discovered this skull in the bottom of his jar of sea debris!








Thanks so much to everyone who has submitted something, you guys are the best! If you haven't sent one in yet, you've got just under 300 days left! Submissions address is at the top right of this page.

--

No new video to share this week, but check out these great links:

Skull-themed group project: Designers Skulls
Skull-themed blogs: Home of The Skulls and I Want Your Skull
Daily art blogs: The Diary Project and Post-Its

p.s. I'm working on making a proposal for a book based on this site, but I need examples of books that are similar, so if you know of any books based on blogs, books about collections of themed stuff, books about daily projects or heck books about skull images make a comment about it below. Thanks!

69. (50) Art-O-Mat (Shrunken) Skulls

Sharpie Marker on Shrink Film [a.k.a. Shrinky Dinks] (edition of 50).

Custom Packaged as "Memento Mori" for the Art-o-Mat #1 of 50.

Today my task was to create an edition of 50 skulls to bring to the Art-O-Mat 10th Anniversary Celebration/Swap Meet next Saturday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Art-O-Mats are recycled cigarette vending machines that have been converted to dispense art. The brainchild of N.C. artist Clark Whittington, there are now over 80 Art-O-Mats throughout the US and even a few overseas. If you're going to be in or near Winston-Salem on the 18th of August, stop by the event, which is free to the public, and will be held at SECCA from 1-4:30. This may be your only chance to get one of these limited edition beauties.

P.S. Thanks to Phil for reminding me of the awesome term "memento mori"!

68. Rice Skull

Uncooked (Organic Basmati) Rice arranged with a Chopstick. All that talk about rice in the comments yesterday got me inspired! OK it's not a carved grain of rice or a skull drawn on rice, but there's still time for that.

Awards Ceremony

Since I was given the Creative Blogger Award from B13 (thanks again!), it's my turn to share some of these pleasantly sincere awards, so here goes...

An Inspirational Blogger Award goes to Mim's Mim4Art.


A Creative Blogger Award goes to Jen's In The New (check out #137, it's skull themed!).

A second Creative Blogger Award goes to Mica's Public Address.


And a third Creative Blogger Award goes to Eliza's The Jambox.


And finally a Thoughtful Blogger Award goes to Amblus (she's snarky, but she really does care!).

Congratulations to the winners, it's your turn to pass on some awards!
Now back to the skulls...

67. Skull Pencil (Skencil or Penskull?)

Carved Pencil (2 views).

P.S. A very special thanks to B13 for kindly honoring Skull-A-Day with a Creative Blogger award! We were given a joint award with the impressive Daily Monster. The award is one of several created by Christy Z. who asks that winners honor 5 others, so expect that post soon.

66. Sparkler Skull

Sparkler Drawing. I hope you didn't think I was skipping today, I just had to wait until dark to capture this one! Thanks to J for procuring the sparklers and being my camera assistant.

65. Helvetiskull

Arranged Type. I limited myself to the letters "Skull A Day" with caps and lowers as shown and used the font family Helvetica Neue, specifically 25 Ultra Light, 35 Thin, 45 Light, and 55 Roman.

P.S. Only 300 more to go!

Skull-A-Day Press: Juxtapoz

"Since apparently there are still new ways to render the most commonly illustrated and universally beloved piece of cranial anatomy, the skull, Another Limited Rebellion started up the Skull-A-Day project. Just when we thought we'd seen them all: a skull rendered by a pile of nails? A skull fashioned out of a styrofoam cup! Oh, and the sublime arrangement shown here, rose petals arranged just so... See the rest of the submissions (and maybe get inspired to submit your own) on the official site, skulladay.blogspot.com."

On Juxtapoz
August 6, 2007

Skull-A-Day Press: VH1's "Best Week Ever" Blog

"We can’t get enough of the Skull-A-Day blog, where an artist is creating a skull out of everyday household objects over the course of a year. And while we realize the effectiveness of using tampons for this proj, if there is a God, that won’t be happening. (JK, we would love it.)"

On VH1's "Best Week Ever" Blog
August 6, 2007

64. Take Two Skulls...

Carved Vitamin Supplement Pills. I took these from my dad, so he wanted me to tell you that if his joints are weak today it's my fault!

63. Collection Mosaic Skull

Click on image for an extra large version to see details...

Photo Mosaic (made with the help of awesome free program MacOSaiX). Since I've been getting so many great submissions of skulls from people's personal collections I thought I'd take a moment (day) to catalog my own.

Here's the process if you're interested:

I spent the day photographing every skull in my house (and on myself) except for those on books and CDs or ones I've created specifically for this project and ended up with 55 unique images (though some were of groups of similar skulls), which I then uploaded to my computer and cropped to squares. Since that wasn't quite enough for a decent pixelated image, I made 3 additional copies of each image (and 180 white squares for the background so I ended up with 400 total squares). I then took a new photo of one of my skulls to use as a source image and cropped it out of the background. After converting the source image to black and white I made several passes using the mosaic software (set at a 20x20 pixel grid) adjusting the size and contrast of the main image until it came up with something that looked pretty decent, and finally I hand adjusted individual pixels to bring out the details.

Here's a list of what I photographed:

• 1 kitchen magnet
• 1 painting from Istanbul
• 1 clear plastic skull lamp I made
• 1 branch and bark articulated skeleton
• 2 hand-painted wooden standing skeletons
• 1 ceramic skull centerpiece from Mexico
• 1 ceramic statuette of a monkey holding a skull
• 1 plastic life-size skull model
• 1 vintage ceramic candle holder
• 1 vintage Visible Woman box
• 1 vintage puzzle package
• 6 small plastic skulls from a capsule (gashapon) machine in Japan
• 1 pirate flag
• 1 wooden skeleton model from Paris
• 1 vintage medical diagram poster
• 1 letterpress/silkscreened greeting card
• 1 small shoulder bag from Brighton Beach, UK
• 1 vintage tattoo flash art poster
• 2 boxes of pirate bandages
• 1 pair of underwear
• 1 sweater
• 8 T-shirts
• 1 short-sleeve buttoned shirt
• 1 sugar skull from Mexico
• 1 real dog skull (that I bought at an antique store)
  
• 1 real possum skull (that I salvaged from a possum that died in my back yard)
• 1 pair of roller skates
• 1 tie
• 2 belt buckles
• 1 pair of custom sneakers
• 1 badge/pin/button
• 1 bone bead bracelet
• 1 metal pendant necklace made by a friend
• 1 pair of socks
• 1 wrist warmer made by a friend
• 1 printed scarf from Paris
• 1 glass mug from Las Vegas
• 2 styrofoam headstones
• 3 tattoos
• 1 candle
• 3 kitchen towels

P.S. Dang, I just remembered at least 2 other skull items I forgot to include: some pirate flag stickers and a small Day of the Dead diorama from Mexico! Ah well.

Braincase IV

Wow, an incredible influx of awesome new skull submissions this last week. Since there are so many I'll be posting them over the next few weeks, so here's the first batch, enjoy (click on the images to enlarge)...

Jon did a great job using the Skull Stencil to paint his PC box!









Kara knitted these spiffy skull wrist warmers! She'll give you the pattern free if you e-mail her "kara_lyon" AT "yahoo.com" or you can get it via Etsy (for a $4 donation to KityKind).







Bonnie-Ann spotted this lovely skull chair at Bergdorf Goodman in NYC last October.










András from Hungary pointed us to the Skull Roaster!








Mica sent this party invitation from Skullfuckers.








Fred sent these awesome photos he took in the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic (I've always wanted to go there, it has a actual skeleton chandelier!)



Schaffer the Darklord sent this self portrait made with an actual x-ray of his own skull!










Katie sent this spooky self-portrait!










And Erik made this cute skull out of clay and pressed leaves and flowers into it while it was still wet!








Thanks for sharing everyone, you rock! If want to share your skulls feel free to send em along to "skull" at "skulladay.com".

Finally if you've ever wondered where the Misfits skull face came from he's actually the Crimson Ghost!...