Color your own Pumpkin Dream

Having great fun this year at Bindlegrim studios working on dimensional art and lanterns, yet there are, as a reminder to self, at least a couple of new print projects in the ol' bindle that need to be accomplished before the summer is done!

One, previously mentioned, is self-publishing short story writings under the working title "Sketchbook of Straw" and it is hoped this might be a series of small books containing perhaps a few stories and poems in subsequent volumes. The first volume will definitely contain two works titled "The Herbivorous Witch" and "The Jitter Dance", while two other stories are near completion with working titles "Ol' Bugbag" and "The Thief of Pumpkin Heart".

Project two, is converting last year's Halloween poem "The Pumpkin Dream" into a large format coloring book.  Here are a few examples from what would be a book of about 40 drawings:


As background to this, while working on the original book , I had felt the simple graphic designs of the original art style would be appropriate for outlining in black and white - allowing the kid at heart to choose their own color palette. (And since I've previously had some great fun creating free 8-page downloadable coloring books while working at Microsoft) it seemed like a natural progression. And so I've begun work on transforming the original art from The Pumpkin Dream into outlines, and am about halfway there!

Stay tuned for more news of publish dates for these two projects as the summer passes, when the air begins to whisper of the expectations of the fall holiday season.Until then Bindlegrim is stubbornly trying to doze the summer away beneath the drone of the cicadas. Wake up, Bindlegrim!

Haunted Brambles Halloween Lantern (#5)

The Pumpkin Patch (Bindlegrim Lantern released 6-2012):

Who or what creeps restlessly through the brambles of the pumpkin patch at midnight...? Take a peek through an autumnal sky tinged in orange, red, or yellow.

Bindlegrim returns to the studio - and though the bindle-by-bindle move may not have brought all the usual supplies - it has lent itself to experimentation through discovery of the materials on hand. In this case, a new lantern with an offering of six total created in pairs of orange, yellow, and red.

This newest limited edition was created with silhouettes of vine and leaf motifs merging together with the leaf and Jack O'Lantern design of the black frame. There are 12 separate panes with an overall scene that takes you deep among the brambles of the pumpkin patch, encountering celestial entities, plentiful mice, a bevy of bats, a black widow, a prowling cat, a witch, a skeleton, and of course a few  pumpkins characters such as a jol-headed scrarecrow, and a JOL-headed ghost. And in the middle of all this one very scared little cottage!

As with other editions each lantern is signed, numbered, and packaged with label information. They are currently only available from the artist, and one has been listed this past Sunday on ebay - ending on June 17, 201220:59:01 PDT.

 
For more images of this lantern (in post and pre-production) - see the following flickr gallery:

 

Note about construction: The frame is created with acid-free museum board. The pieces were Made in the USA and hand assembled by the artist. Each work is packaged in a cellophane bag and also labeled with its number in the edition. The images are laser-prints on vellum for durability. A 3 watt flicker bulb is recommended - and it should be noted a white bulb might be best on these to keep the color hue of the paper most accurately. Small holes in the top piece are present for hanging the lantern with soft wire or strong thread if you prefer a battery operated candle. 

The Return of Bindlegrim

Well over a month since the last post mentioning the move of Bindlegrim southward, and the long process of hauling the studio out of the cottage and in to the casita is almost complete! It's not easy moving a studio with nothing but a bindle over your shoulder... and many trips later the casita is just beginning to feel like home.

And even though the studio is still in boxes as of this writing, it was only just possible to eke out a few doodles during that time, creating new material for the next Bindlegrim limited edition vintage-style Halloween lantern. This will be style #5 (as yet untitled) in that series, with this design featuring leafy vine motifs, as if you are crawling the brambles of the pumpkin patch while spooky creatures and celestial objects peek back through the clearings.





Hope to see these pane designs incorporated into a material object casting a classical spooky glow within the next two weeks... even though this will have to happen between the unpacking of boxes, and general settling into the new digs. But there is much excitement to get old' Bindlegrim's bones rattling again, and a big thank-you to those of you who may be traveling back this way after the long break!




By the way, those of you who might have been following Bindlegrim on facebook or Bindlegrim on twitter during the break, surely noticed there was some time here and there to add around a dozen new old Halloween songs to Bindlegrim's vintage Halloween music station. Three hours now worth of haunting melodies! And while there needs to be a few separate blog entries about the music broadcasting there - you can find recent spooky additions from the era of 78 RPM records, with themes of boogie men, candy, bewitchments, bedevilment, and various other October nightmares. Tune in, and see you again here real soon!