The Dead Are Coming Alive

I wanted to share my latest painting, well a piece that has been in the works for several months now. I introduce Stitched Sally Mae from my Skeleton Krew Collection. I admired this plain jane for her simple beauty and gave her a lovely name to match her eyes. She will be featured at my upcoming art show Oct 3rd at the Opera DE Studios in Wilmington, DE. She still needs to some touching up on her hair and eyes but her sad soul is slowly coming alive.

I  bought her from this local antique store I frequent every now and than. When I first brought her home, I had to hide it from my husband Bruce, he is so superstitious, worrying about bringing attached spirits into our house. Nevertheless, I decided to make her part of the of my ever growing Skeleton Krew family . I'm fascinated with the idea that these people in my paintings could have already died and now I am bringing out there soul and attaching a story of death matched with sorrow. Recently I've been really drawn to the emotions of mourning, how one's mind goes through stages of loss and memories that remind us of one an other. That is one common ground between individual's souls and the loss of life between one an other. 

Here are some images of my process, I currently just finished the third stage, which I will have one more to make her complete. She is a large antique photograph, roughly 18" x 24" and came in a black wooden frame with antique glass. I started appling black gouache paint to build her face and to bring out her skeleton frame. I'm no expert on fine art or anatomical drawing but I think I'm slowing capturing something more, a feeling of mourning. A feeling that we all have experienced in our life, and the questions we ask upon growing older and our machines slowly down moving closer to death.