Teeny Tiny Bat

Has anyone seen that cheesy, wonderfully weird movie from 1979 called "The Halloween that Almost Wasn't"?  We watched it all the time as kids. It starred Judd Hirsch as Dracula, who works to try to convince the Halloween monsters: the mummy, Frankenstein, the werewolf, and the witch, that Halloween should not end.  It even ends with disco dancing and leisure suits. What's not to like?  In a ridiculous scene where Dracula has to get through a locked door, he shrinks into a tiny bat to squeeze under the door. You can even see the string pulling him through. It's awesome (look at 8:40), as Dracula repeats "Teeny Tiny Bat" to grow smaller:

This one's for you, Dracula!

"Teeny Tiny Bat" Pencil Copyright 2011 Jessica Boehman

A Prickly Halloween

I'm designing a new line of Halloween illustrations that will be made into cards.  I'd almost prefer to send a Halloween card than a Christmas card; it's my favorite day of the year.  For one day, you can be anything or see anything.  On that day, I really believe in ghosts (though I really do) and goblins and witches and werewolves.  My most memorable childhood costume was the year I was a wizard, complete with false beard and nose and wrinkles, courtesy of my sister, who had learned the basics of theater makeup.  I will never do that again; I almost ripped off my skin at the end of the night trying to remove the skin.  Moreover, my nose wiggled in the weirdest way when I ate and my friends in school were a little creeped out by that in the cafeteria.  In recent years (and probably because I'm an art historian), I've tended to the historical, turning saints into costumes. Two of the more successful were St. Lucy with her bloodied eyes on a plate and St. Joan of Arc, complete with dancing flames crawling up my legs.

I love the smell of October air, that crisp, apply, candy-scented air that makes you wrap up with a scarf while enjoying the last rays of the sun's warmth.  I love the smell of a whole bag of Halloween candy.  Each year, it smells exactly the same.  I love the whole atmosphere of Halloween night.  After all of these years, it still feels magical to me.  Every Halloween, I still read Jack Prelutsky's "It's Halloween!" to myself (my mom read it to us when we were young). I look forward to the day I will read it to my children.  There was something very comforting about going to sleep on Halloween night listening to the final words of that book:

It's late and we are sleepy,
The air is cold and still.
Our jack-o-lantern grins at us
Upon the window sill.
We're stuffed with cake and candy
And we've had a lot of fun,
But now it's time to go to bed
And dream of all we've done.
We'll dream of ghosts and goblins
And of witches that we've seen,
And we'll dream of trick-or-treating
On this happy Halloween.

I've decided to do a line of macabre images (coming soon), but in line with my shop, I had to add one sweet card.  This is the first in a line of hedgehog holiday-themed illustrations. 

"Happy Halloween, Hedgehog!"  Pencil and digital color.  Copyright 2011 Jessica Boehman