[Flashback Friday] 157. Shade(s of Death) Skull

Flashback Friday** has been so successful that Azurafae, Tatman, and myself, Citizen Agent, decided to continue it for another year with a different spin on it. This year we will be taking turns counting down our personal favorite 17 skulls from the Original 365.25 Year. This is a perfect opportunity to visit the archives as well as get to know your editors a little better as we will be adding some additional commentary on some of the original pieces. In doing so, perhaps you may discover some of what it is that drew us getting more involved currently with Skull-A-Day.

#17: 157. Shade(s of Death) Skull

Venetian C says:

Something that surprised me with the flashback countdown last year was finding out how many of the original skulls I missed commenting on. It seems my favorite list is not starting out much better, as I have found yet another I missed. One of the things I remembered most about this one was how a specific moment in time was captured in this picture with the birds circling overhead. It reminded me that we are also just a moment in time, and that no matter how we try to repeat something it can never be the same. In doing “C-Rations” each week I discovered the large number of pictures I take just to get that one “good” shot. I can imagine how the same was true for this image. The birds, being traditionally tied with death in folklore, work beautifully with the skull because it looks like an unspoken message is being sent altering them to the location of the of the departed.

**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.

“Unholy Analog Noisemachine” Skull

Sebastien from Belgium sent the following: “I'm a noise musician in my free time and believe strongly in a DIY approach to making music. As such I also make all the graphics/logos/merch for my band myself and I've chosen a skull theme for most of it. Oh, and if you're into freaky music, you can find my stuff here.”


Simon C says:

I took an opportunity to check out your music and my preconceived notions of what to expect were completely obliterated. I really enjoy it and seeing these different versions of the ways in which you have sought to put put your music into picture form. Thank you for submitting your work for us to share and let me wish you many successes with your music project.

Dia de la Abby: #2 - Filet Crochet Skull

One of my favorite crafts to do while doing other things is crocheting, so I've made a crocheted skull. This one is oddly inspired by my late paternal grandmother who used to crochet fine cloth using the same technique, but with sewing thread. Because of her, filet crochet was the 1st technique that I did for a large project.

I made this using a crochet technique called "filet crochet" that is a series of open and closed squares to create an image. I used a crochet thread and a very tiny hook to make this, so it is very light weight and delicate. If you would like to know how to make this project, just follow the tutorial. I have made a filet crochet skull scarf, that I wear every winter. You can see a picture of it in my old Ides of Skull Fanatic post. You can also take a peek at some other old skull art that I made.

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.

Portrait Skull

Susan Ciaccio of Rubia de los Muertos sent us a few great skeleton portraits, but I selected them as my favorite. She makes custom portraits for individuals, families and pets.



Susan's etsy site says she loves Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos and I can see that influence with her creative use of calaveras. One of my 1st submissions was a small family portrait done in skulls representing my husband, my daughter and me. Of course it isn't close to as great as Susan's work. I love the creative use of details to relate back to the actual people. I also love her willingness to work with the customer to deliver the perfect custom piece for them. Her use of embellishments is great. The additional dimension really adds to the over all look of the piece. Though this piece that I chose doesn't have any 3D embellishments, I highly suggest looking at the other pieces she has in her etsy shop, Rubia de los Muertos, which use additional elements such as glitter, feathers, and beads. Keep up the great work Susan.

C-Rations: LIII

This week’s offering is clay: hand-dug, local.

“Missing Links” 2" x 2" x 3" & 1.5" x 1.5" x 2" molded, hand-dug, local river clay.

Folklore C says:

I was out by the river searching for fossils when I came across this exposed mass of clay in the river bank. Fossil hunting quickly took a back seat as I began to poke at the slippery area dislodging a nice chunk of clay. My thoughts turned to civilizations of the past and how they were able to create the things that they needed to survive with similar material. Sitting there by the river bank using only my hands and some small rocks, I let my primal instincts take over. I made art just like my forebears did. I went today looking for evidence of the past, and it appears I found it in myself.

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.

Eye Skull

Keely from Calgary said: “I've been following Skull-A-Day since the beginning. I make a ton of stuff, and true to my life's work as a mortician, much of my art is skull and death related. This is a collage of eyes, and it glows in the dark. Its on a 6' by 5' canvas and the skull is 2' by 3'. ”



Black Light C says:

The votes are in, and it looks like the “eyes” have it! This is an amazingly created piece, as well as a pretty amazing artist background that goes with it. Thank you for submitting the extra photo of what this looks like in the dark. I very much like that you are able to see the brush strokes in the paint at night. It makes me think of all the dangerous things that can hurt us that we can not see as well as all the unknown that is left behind after things are “cleaned.” We look forward to seeing more of your inspired artwork in the future.

[BONUS] Yes, Virginia, there is a Skull Claus!

One of the definite perks of running this site is getting the opportunity to thank the diligent readers by giving things away to them. Even better is getting to see them happily enjoying their skull spoils! Shellhawk was one of the winners of the recent Iron Fist giveaway and she kindly shared this picture of herself wearing the lovely bathing suit she got as part of her package of goodies!...

Skull Earrings

Sarah S. is here today to display these delightful skull earrings she made. "This is a pair of earrings I sculpted and painted. It's my own take on a Dias de los Muertos design."

Hanging skulls on lobes,
celebrating those who past,
with white, toothy grins.

These have to be some of the cutest little skulls out there, Sarah. Great work on the details. I know that our new editor Azurafae will be a big fan of them as well as a lot of others.

At the time that Sarah submitted these they were for sale at her Etsy store, but unfortunately they have sold since then. Maybe she'll make more if some of you ask her nicely enough. Maybe.....

[CONTEST] Win a handmade Skull-A-Day bag!

My mom recently made some limited edition bags, out of the remnants of fabric I had made for the chairs in my After Life exhibition last year, and she's decided to give one of them away to a lucky Skull-A-Day reader!

To be entered in the drawing just leave a comment below saying what a skull would keep in a bag. [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 June 14th to enter so don't delay! [UPDATE] The contest is over and the winner will be announced soon!

And of course you don't have to wait til the end of the contest to get one of these bags, you can buy one of the remaining bags from her Etsy store HERE.

Good luck!

Stop Sign Skull

Andrew M. Fabry found a sticker on the back of a stop sign and with a little adjustment, made this skull.

I like the shine of the sign back with the worn sticker paper. This is a great piece and lucky material find. It's a bit of a found object skull with some improvising. I like the back ground that the sign reflects, it really makes the photo pop.

Sunday Simulacra - Version 4.1

To kick off the new 4.0 year I wanted to share some really good simulacrum to start the year off right.

This first find is from skull hunter Scott Bolan who found it in an appropriate place. He writes, "These are two photos of a cemetery in Huaycan Peru. I was there working with a non-profit organization called the Light and Leadership Organization. The picture is from zone Z in Huaycan Peru. A settlement outside of Lima Peru that was created to escape a terrorist organization call The Shining Path."



Second, skull hunter Jeanette Bueno Verastegui sends greetings and a skull from Monterrey, NL Mexico. "I have several photos of a skull shape that I saw when I was about to drink my beer. I love skulls, but I sure I did not manipulate it."



And last we received this from skull hunter Matthew Gibney who simply states, "These are spots on Bobby's pup Sarah."



Thanks again, skull hunters, for keeping your eyes open and submitting these for us to show. If any of you other skull hunters out there find some simulacra then please submit them and we can keep this Sunday tradition alive(and dead). Just remember that it may take a little longer to get posted since we only do this once a week.

Super Saturday Skull Fest

Greetings, Skull-A-Day readers. It's my extreme pleasure to have my first post of the 4.0 year be another installment of the Super Saturday Skull Fest. Today's post is all about super skull maker Edward Przydzial. Ed describes himself as the embodiment of skulls. "I have been an artist all my life and my skull obsession goes back 40 years. I do tattoos, drawings, sskullptures, graphics, photoshops, props, jewelry etc. Some of my first skull arts were back when I was a kid..." These days he spends time in the Midwest and on the West coast promoting his skull business, especially as a metal smith. He even designed his own company logo.


Ed makes loads of silver skulls and some of his best are these killer skull rings. Hell, even Keith Richards himself would be proud to sport one of these bad boys. I love the way they seem to devour the fingers of the wearer.


Not only does his love of skulls go back 40 years, he even has family roots in the spooky entertainment industry. "My grandfather was Sir Graves Ghastly. He was a well known horror movie tv host and my love for the great monsters and horror was from the cradle." Ed's early days in entertainment were only a sign of what was yet to come. "If you dig around a bit my theatrical background goes back to the early 70's as I was also a classic Alice Cooper, mark 4 Kiss fan (Pete, Ace, Paul, etc) and my fantasy with fire, blood and skulls runs deep. I do breath fire as well."


Ed keeps many irons in the fire so he is also a member of many past and current metal bands. Currently he is the front man, and logo designer, of the "Bernard Edwards Project Homicide". "The music is morose, depressing doom meets thrash meets death/speed metal mixed all industrial. Undefinable in it's genre... soundscapes, neo politics and religious ideology."


We tip our hat to you, Mr. Przydzial, for all of your skully accomplishments. You live your life to the fullest in the glorification of all things skull. Your inspirations come from vast and different backgrounds, and hopefully you will inspire many more people in different ways. Keep up the great work and keep it skullified!



Are you a super skull artist? Do you find that most of your drawings and art projects are skull based? Then feel free to submit your pics and some background info for consideration into another Super Saturday Skull Fest. I can't guarantee that these will be done every Saturday, but if you provide enough quality material then I would love to show it off for you. Thanks!

[BONUS Flashback Friday] Abby's Favorites

I'm doing one last Flashback to the original 365 skulls to welcome Abby, our newest editor, to the Skull-A-Day fold! She told me about three of her favorites that didn't make the original Flashback Friday series so here they are...


60. Flower Skull

This one actually ended up on the cover of Poetry Magazine!

109. Jumbo Lace Skull

You can actually see this one being made in a nifty video the folks at Etsy made HERE.

205. (Light As A) Feather Skull

The title comes from the party game "Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board", as well as the title of a very catchy song by the Lunachicks, which I had in my head as I was making it!

Skull Appreciation Day!

We here at Skull-A-Day have decided that there needs to be an official international day of cranial love! To that end we're starting a campaign to get June 4th (the day Skull-A-Day started) officially recognized as Skull Appreciation Day around the world, and of course to get as many people celebrating it as possible. Since we have absolutely no idea about how to go about doing this we've decided to ask you the dedicated fans of this project to help!

Here's some things you can do:

1. Post the graphic above and link back to this page to help raise awareness. Or copy and paste the html code HERE.
2. If you know anything about how to get an official day created on a local, state, or national level tell us in the comments below.
3. If you are in a position where you can help get this day officially celebrated in your office, town, city, state, country please do! Then tell us about it so we can spread the news.
4. Plan an event for that day and let us know about it so we can spread the news!
5. Suggest ways that people could celebrate it on a large or small level in the comments below.

As always send us pictures of whatever you do so we can share it with the world!

Happy S.A.D.! 

p.s. Here's what we did in 2011 to celebrate in Richmond, Virginia. And here's what we did in 2012 in Philadelphia! And here's what we did in 2013 in Chicago!


*Speaking of days of celebrations, be sure to also mark your calendars for Strangely Orange Snack Appreciation Day (or S.O.S.A.D.) on June 21st, which was started by our friend Terry at Bent Objects and was one of the big inspirations for our own plans!

Lady Blue Mosaic Skull

This came to us simply from “Saorsa54” who mentioned that this was a skull that they just recently completed.

Zip-a-C-doo-dah! says:

Mr. bluebird on today’s skull... My! Oh! My! What a wonderful day. I am drawn to the large eye sockets with the bead work as well as the shiny bits of mirroring that help break up the blue. You show some amazing skill in the execution of this piece. Thank you for submitting your work for us to share, and please remember us in the future if you decided to do more skullrific mosaic work.

Dia de la Abby: #1 - Cut Paper Sugar Skull

Hello All, I am Abby, your new Thursday editor. This is my 1st of many Thursday, Dia de la Abby, weekly posts to come. Following in the skull steps of Noah, Tatman and Citizen Agent, by making skull themed art and posting it for all of you to enjoy. I'm highly influenced by Dia de los Muertos...hence the "Dia de la Abby" name...which was Citizen Agent's idea. Expect to see lots of Mexican related art in various different mediums, as well as some inspired by the Skull-A-Day 1.0 project that lead this.

Enough with the introduction, time for the good stuff, the art. As I mentioned before, I'm highly influenced by Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead. My favorite thing or really the thing that attracted me to learning more about this fantastic holiday, is the beautiful sugar skulls that are made as treats. I love the details and bright colors used to create the tasty works of art, so I have translated that into a more long term piece using colorful tissue paper and black card stock. This piece is also influenced by Noah's Quoth the Skull cut paper piece, which is my all time favorite of his monumental amount of work and will soon be a tattoo...which is a dedicated sort of love...just like being an editor on Skull-A-Day is. Since I love sharing art and how to make things, here is the Cut Paper Sugar Skull tutorial.

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.

Queen of the Dead Skull

Aaron Wolf made this digital print titled, "Queen of the Dead". It is a limited run of 12 signed and numbered prints." They are available to order through his blog.

I know this is a little delaying on posting, but if you would like to purchase a print, they are still available on his site. I'm glad the guys saved this one. It's as if it was meant for me to post. I love the use of colors, which are some of my favorite summer colors. The doe eyes, pouty lips and long hair really work well with the anatomical nature of the skull. It reminds me of a black and white skull that I've done, but Aaron's is definitely more vibrant. I also recommend looking through his other pieces on his blog. He has many delightfully creepy digital art pieces.

Welcome to Skull-A-Day 4.0

Believe it or not this is the first day of the fourth year of a project that was really only meant to last one year!

Its longevity is a testament to you the readers and your own enthusiasm and creative energy. Of course none of this would be happening now if it weren't for our two incredible editors from year 3.0: Tatman & Citizen Agent. They not only sorted and posted your submissions, but took on their own creative tasks as well! If you haven't already, why not take a moment to pat these two on the back for all of their hard (unpaid) work.

As previously mentioned, year 4.0 will continue in the vein of 3.0, but with the addition of a new editor Abby who will be joining the boys in their efforts to keep your creative fires stoked and adding her own personal flair to the site as well. Citizen Agent even made this excellent graphic to officially introduce the new and improved Skull-Team ("If you've got a problem...if no one else can help..."):

There will be some other small changes on the way in the coming year, but the basic idea stays the same, to positively encourage creativity in all its forms, by people young and old, from around the world using the form of a skull as inspiration! If you've been enjoying the site, but you haven't contributed yet, why not give it a try this year? You may be surprised by what happens when you do.

Thanks again for reading and supporting Skull-A-Day!

Noah
creator of Skull-A-Day

[BONUS] Skullphabet Graffiti!

Artists How&Nosm made this awesome giant graffiti piece using my Skullphabet font!...

...and even caught US secretary of treasury Timothy Geithner walking in front of it?!...

There's also a video of their process of creating it...



And if you didn't see it before, my Skullphabet 2 was also used for some graffiti!

Animal Skulls

Shea David from Boston, MA told us: “I've been obsessed with skulls for a while, but more recently became fanatical about animal skulls, skeletons and taxidermy... I've been doodling skulls pretty regularly, but it's pretty ironic that I had just finished doodling a skull when a friend casually sent me the link to this site! Very cool... ”




Stuffed C says:

We are glad that you found us, we don't get many original animal skull submissions, and sometimes I forget the diversity of skulls there are in the world. Thank you for taking the time to submit your work on your first day.


Grateful C says:

♫ ♪ Today it occurred to me, What a long, skull trip it's been. ♪♫ As many of you already know today is the final day of year 3.0, and by coincidence I was also the one who posted the first submission of the year. In case you forgot, it was also a skull with an animal theme, but done in a very different way. Thanks once again to all of you who submitted, read, commented, and liked the last 365 days. Tomorrow we begin year 4.0 with another 365 days rich in skully goodness ahead of us so stick around and enjoy.