A few weeks ago I decided to put together a presentation  for my Art Appreciation students of spooky and scary art throughout history. I should not have been surprised when artist after artist popped up having one or the other unsettling and scary artwork in their portfolio. 

Why was I surprised? It seems like most culture have some kind of holiday around the death and superstition. I myself had one of those among my works. I did not start out planning to paint the skull. But here he is adoring my walls with his silly smile only he could pull off. I remember the day like it was yesterday when he would  come to life. I had my first painting class with our new professor and amazing artist Tim Graham that semester. He started our class with a prompt to paint anything we wanted in our first class. This would help him gain an understanding of our painting skills. 

My class mates and I started roaming the studio to find inspiration. There were not many props to pick from in the painting studio and in the end it was the old abused skeleton head with its crooked teeth which won my affection. I had two hours to complete my painting. Not a fast painter on a good day I was quite surprised when I stepped away and looked at my painting. To my horror I had made his head square to fit him to the canvas diameters. After looking at my creation for a bit I embraced the square and got over my initial shock and insecurity as a painter.  After all this was suppose to be a quick exercise and in rushing my brain wanted to make him fit. Much later I learned how to scale and proportion my sketches from life observation. He was never to be truly scary and the color palette I choose tells as much. I wonder how many art students he helped with their drawing skill. It was about time he would get a name. Since is unfortunate deformation of his head, he reminded me of what  the characters in Minecraft would look like as skeletons. That was the day my skull got his name; let me introduce you to Steve….

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