Category Archives: Artwork

Artwork of any kind.

10/13/12

Free Spooky Pictures

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There’s nothing like a few creepy paintings to spice up a dimly-lit hallway at a haunted house or Halloween party. But if you don’t have the skills or monetary resources, setting up a ghoulish gallery can be a problem. That’s where I come in. For today’s update, I’ve assembled a collection of public domain paintings that can be printed out for free. I tried to select material that was spooky enough by itself so that all you have to do is put them in a frame. However, don’t let me stop you from using them to make one of the many cool “haunted painting” props noted at the Monsterlist.

Those of you who read “Spirit Rappings” might recall my noting that, under US Copyright law, any American work published before January 1, 1923 is in the (American) public domain. When selecting foreign works, I made sure to seek out ones whose copyrights had also expired in their country of origin. In fact, I went as far as to select stuff that was well over 100 years old! Considering how the average copyright duration outside the US is the life of the creator plus 50-70 years, I think we can all agree that I went above and beyond the call of duty on this matter. That said, those of you reading from outside the USA should be wary about using any of these works (unless they are already PD in your country). To see a full-size view, please click the pictures.

This is too awesome to joke about.

“All is Vanity” by Charles Allan Gilbert (Published in 1892)

Lenore...

Daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe (1848)

That reminds me, I really need to clean up my desk...

“Vanitas Still Life” by Pieter Claesz

Best paperweight ever?

“Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill” by Pieter Claesz

Whoa, what's wrong with the skull?

“Vanitas” by Pieter Claesz

Secret stash

“Allegory with Skull” by Antoine Wiertz

Oh for crying out loud, I was only resting my eyes!

“The Hasty Burial” by Antoine Wiertz

OM NOM NOM

“Saturn Devouring His Son” by Francisco Goya

Ironically, anyone who called him a vampire would most likely have gotten a stake through the chest...

“Portrait of Vlad III” by Unknown

Chanukkill!

“Judith Victorious” by Lucas Cranach the Elder

Although we think our information is solid, at the end of the day we have to admit that we’re not lawyers. Our legal commentary is worth exactly what you paid for. We’re just sharing this since this is interesting and those seeking to benefit from allegedly public domain works should consult at least one lawyer before doing so. Gravedigger’s Local 16 is not to be held responsible for anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any of the links in this article or using the material noted here. Attempt at your own discretion.

10/9/12

Unconventional Carvings

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The year was 2008. As Gravedigger’s Local 16 was in its early stages, Strange Jason and I were in constant communication about fodder for the Halloween countdown. So when Jason found out about a contest about making Jack O’Lanterns from things other than pumpkins, we immediately agreed that I had to enter. Originally, I was going to puncture a face in an empty soup can, but that plan ran into a snag when the can opener I needed for the project went missing. But things got back on track after a quick search of the house turned up an empty pizza box and a bulk box of Lean Pockets. Sadly, I didn’t win the contest (let alone get honorable mention). I did, however, throw up all the pictures onto my Myspace page as part of a Halloween special and eventually forgot about them due to both the development of Gravedigger’s Local 16 and the fading popularity of that particular social network.

It wasn’t until recently that I remembered the pictures and made the decision to share them with you. Now these former Myspace exclusives are available to the general public for the first time, along with a look at their creation.

Continue reading →

01/31/12

Tuesday uEtsy: The Art of Chuck Hodi

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Tuesday uEtsy

[For those who are searching for unique horror items, one can’t beat Etsy.com. Each Tuesday, Gravedigger’s Local 16 aims to highlight one seller. If you’re looking to spruce up your look, redecorate your sanctorum or get a gift for that special something in your life, Etsy.com is your place for spooky econo.]

The Art of Chuck Hodi
http://www.etsy.com/shop/chuckhodi

 

Print 5×7″ – Wolfman

The art of Chuck Hodi sticks with you long afer you stopped viewing th epiece, in similar fashion to car wrecks and most religious experiences. There’s something about this artwork that is both equal parts amazing and creepy that can’t be easily shaken.

A master of reproducing the famous monsters of filmland, Hodi has a great knack for producing some really sick original pieces. There’s something about the man’s sense of humor that might get him locked up someday. But, until then, let us enjoy his work.

Print 8×10″ – Vincent Price – Horror Vintage Halloween Gothic Spooky Creepy Hollywood Monster Creature

Throughout his etsy store, you’ll find pieces that feature some of the stage and screen’s stars (and scars) such as the maestro Price, pictured here. From Ted Bundy to Pee Wee Herman, Huch Hodi has someone waiting for you to be hung up on your wall.

The Androgynous Ant – Original Drawing

Some of his originals are pretty demented. We don’t toss that word around lightly. Seriously, there’s something rather bizarre about pieces like this one, the Adrogynous Ant. It might get you in trouble with the law or your significant other when you purchase this but maybe you’re that type of an outlaw mind. We dare you.

Print 8×10″ – Elvira – 80s

Sometimes, Hodi’s art style really prestens a subject in a light that is excellent. This picture of the 80′s horror host, Elvira, maintains the woman’s sexiness as well as the punk rock/new wave style that she exibitted when she first came out on the scene. It’s very wild, and Hodi’s paintbrush was able to catch that feeling.

Print 11×14″ – Edgar Allan Poe

Similarly, the business of Hodi’s lines with this portrait of Poe shows a disturbed and busy mind, caught up in a thought process that produced a collection of classic literature of the macabre. Of course, it could also just be how Poe is disappointed with Baltimore’s failing at the recent playoffs – either way.


Print 8×10″ – Couple

Valentine’s day is coming up. That’s all what we’re saying on that.

 

You can see all of Chuck Hodi’s paintings at his Etsy store. And you’ll see us again, next week, when we return with another edition of Tuesday uEtsy.

01/17/12

Tuesday uEtsy: Albino Alligator

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Tuesday uEtsy

[For those who are searching for unique horror items, one can’t beat Etsy.com. Each Tuesday, Gravedigger’s Local 16 aims to highlight one seller. If you’re looking to spruce up your look, redecorate your sanctorum or get a gift for that special something in your life, Etsy.com is your place for spooky econo.]

 

Albino Alligator
http://www.etsy.com/shop/AlbinoAlligator 

Stigmata – Large Modern Distressed Leather Cuff

Nearly two months since our last installment, not much can be reported in the town of Leathbridge. When the temperature descends southwards to the single degrees, most of the town’s residents hibernate. The ground is hard so most of Quiet Side’s activities involve minimal maintenance. Young Gus shows up early to brew the coffee. The Intern is on winter break, though plans have been made for him to return in the spring.

We’ve been thankful to avoid the snowfall so far, though it’s a looming shadow we expect to fall soon. It’ll be Humphrey’s first snowfall, having celebrated his first Christmas with his family. Poinsettia was excited to be in season, showing up to the Local Holiday Party with a few of the poisonous blossoms pinned beautifully in her hair.

The year brings new expectations and excitement for the possibility of what can happen and the dread at what will surely take place. The equilibrium should always have you prepared for the worst but looking forward to the best, leading us to kick off the year’s first Etsy spotlight with the wares of Albino Alligator.

 

Pugenstein Frankenstein Pug Horror Art Print

It would be wise to spend the next two months pondering what you can shed from your life, the items that no longer accurately represent your life. Life is too short to be wasted on clutter and too long to be saddled with insincere expression. Perhaps you own a pug or have fond memories of a former pet. Clear out a space on your wall and place this print.

Vampire Skull Mehndi Horror Art Print

The effort against the Myerficiation of blood suckers has picked up steam. Thought the damage has been done, leaving us as a culture years of rehabilitation ahead before the vampire regains respect. Still, be ahead of the curve with this Mehndi horror art print. There will always be skulls, there will always be vampires, there will always be fanged fears of the night.

Aqua Skull Mehndi Horror Art Print

2012 should be a year of experimentation beyond the norms while maintaining a healthy respect for the conventions and traditions that have brought us here. So if we eschew a wardrobe of complete black for a splash of color, your den can represent this as well with the Aqua Skull print. With music devolving into noise and our civilization mildewing away to cannibalism and chaos, why not try something different? All you have to lose is your life.

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Chop Top Tribute

As we said, maintain a healthy respect for those who came before you. Appreciate your ancestors. Respect your elders until they try to put you down. Then, go for the jugular as you fight for your space. No one should ever try to put you down. If you have to fight for survival, and it’s clear you’re going to lose, make sure to take as many of them down with you. This has more to do with this magnificent rendition of Bill Mosley’s iconic character Chop Top than what might lead on, though we’ll let you discover the connection.

Death’s Head Moth Silence Lambs Mehndi Horror Art Print

If there is any evidence that you have as much right to life as anyone, take look to the mainstream hit of ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ a horror movie that garnished respect and accolades a plenty. There is room here for you. There is a future for you if you want it. You will eventually die, as everything dies. This might frighten you as the concept is beyond horrifying. But in the time between now and then is your life. Please, enjoy as much of it as you can.

Enjoy the goods of Albino Alligator. You can find the store here, with cuffs, art and more available. We shall speak with you again next week with our next edition of Tuesday uEtsy.

10/14/11

The People Behind VHS Cover Art

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The last time I discussed VHS cover art, I had wanted to include a video featuring artwork by a British artist. As I was unable to remember his name, I was unable to find, let alone include, it. Thankfully, diligent searching has paid off and I finally remembered his name: Graham Humphreys. British readers will no doubt remember Mr. Humphreys’ work and how it got caught up in the infamous “Video Nasties” controversy. As for the video, it’s a labor of love put together by one paintnothing:

After the excitement from rediscovering the video faded, I got to thinking about the identities of other artists whose works graced the shelves of countless video stores in the good old days. Who were they? Thankfully, Google was able to shed some light on the matter. This interview was of great help, as was this interview with Corey Wolfe.

But let’s not forget movie poster artwork, the ancestor of home video cover art. Both old cover art and posters are loved by horror fans and have mostly lapsed into Photoshopped images of actors and actresses in the film instead of using artwork, thanks to things like contracts and the perception that the general public prefers pictures to drawn images. One of the best known poster artists is Drew Struzen, who went from doing posters for b-movies to creating the iconic artwork for many classic films of the 80′s. Wikipedia has both a fascinating article on film posters and an entire category devoted to movie poster artists, with Reynold Brown standing out as one of my favorites. Another favorite of mine, Neal Adams, sadly didn’t make the list but is still worthy of note. This section of his website details all of his work on posters and newspaper ads and includes films like Grizzly and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors.

Finally, Google Books offers these previews of some Heritage Signature Vintage Movie Poster auction guides will provide tons of poster art and lobby cards from varios horror and sci-fi films from days gone by. Enjoy!

10/8/11

Grzegorz Domaradzki’s Night of the Living Dead

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I’m pleased to share news with you about your next home decoration. We here at GdL16 have received word of this print by artist Grzegorz Domaradzki, brought to you from Kryptonite Prints and Apparel.

Just in time for Halloween, Domaradzki’s rendition of the famed horror classic, Night of the Living Dead, has been silkscreened into a limited run. Though we offer you a preview here, you can see the full image over at Kryptonite Prints and Apparel as well as over at Domaradzki’s official site.

The artwork is exceptional, capturing both the visceral horror as well as the creeping dread of the classic. Domaradzki’s arrangement into the universal symbol of death captivates the primal fear of this landmark piece of cinema.

You can get a colored print, mixed with the vivid colors of Domaradzki’s artwork and Kryptonite Prints and Apparel’s skillful reproduction. Such detail is carefully tended to in each print and that’s vital to the artwork, since there’s also an even more limited run of glow-in-the-dark silver available for purchase.

The color prints will run at 250 prints, while the glow-in-the-dark is limited to 100. Kryptonite Prints and Apparel has offered a generous discount to our readers: 15% off when they use the code ‘GDL16′ at checkout.

(Pssst…we sprung this discount on our Twitter and Facebook feeds an hour early. Follow us there and recommend that your friends both follow/LIKE us as well as reading this site. And go buy a print. Tell Kryptonite that GdL16 sent you and they might extend some future discounts….IN THE FUTURE*…)

*love to Criswell

09/29/11

Even More Cool Cover Art

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Like many of you reading this, I love old school VHS cover art. Since I recently found a bumper crop of websites devoted to showcasing 80′s VHS cover art, I just had to share. Although most of these focus solely on horror/sci-fi, a few do feature cover art from other genres:

Video Cultures
80′s VHS Cover Art
The Great VHS Haul of 2011 – VivaVHS
VHS Wasteland – Serial Killer Magazine
those we left behind: Video cover art of the 80s
VHS Cover art from the 80s – THE RUE MORTUARY
those we left behind: VHS Video Posters from the 1980s
Profondo VHS: Italian Horror Cover Art from Around the World
Insane 80s Horror Movie Video Artwork | THE SURFING PIZZA

I also discovered there are numerous videos on Youtube devoted to showcasing VHS covers. First up is a collection of British cover art uploaded by dawnsbrother68:

Up next, here’s MrMovieNight’s collection:

This video by jmsflyXdvd focuses solely on VHS covers with drawn artwork. He also has several videos featuring covers from every horror movie released for each year during the 80′s:

Finally, MoviePalaceOfBlood offers us “167 Of The Greatest Horror Movie VHS Covers”:

Of course, I would would be in remiss if I didn’t note that cool cover art doesn’t necessarily mean the movie will match up to the expectations that said cover raises, let alone be good. On the flip side, sometimes a film’s cover art will be so bad that it can drive away people from a good movie. Then again, sometimes bad art can be so bad that it somehow becomes good. The following will show several examples of this (covering horror and other genres):

those we left behind: Bad VHS cover art
those we left behind: Bad VHS cover art sequel
Awesomely Bad ’80s VHS Horror Movie Cover Art
80 Awesomely Bad ’80s Video Covers | TotalFilm.com
80 More Awesomely Bad ’80s Video Covers | TotalFilm.com

As you’ve probably guessed, there are videos devoted to bad cover art. Here’s a several part series from
OcpCommunications (although I disagree about Robo Vampire; I think the artwork for that movie is amazingly awesome):

If that isn’t enough VHS cover art for you, then I recommend checking out the Lunchmeat VHS fanzine, which often features interviews with the artists behind the artwork we love.

07/29/10

Freaky Tiki Surf-ari: Shag! and The Art Of Tiki

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With all of the focus on Tiki music here at the Local, it’s all too easy to forget its artistic side. Thankfully, Google Books makes it just as easy to jog one’s memory on the subject.

Let’s start with Tiki Art Now! by Otto Von Stroheim and Robert Williams. In addition to its great information on all things Tiki, it kicks off the art with Dr. Alderete’s “Acapulco Tiki,” wherein an El Santo-style luchador kicks back with a Munktiki brand “Kreepy” mug. It’s the perfect way to unwind after a hard day of wrestling monsters! The other pieces of art in the preview are a mix of cool and spooky, normal Tiki and horror Tiki.

The book’s striking cover art is by one Josh Agle, better known to his fans as “Shag.” In case you’re wondering about the name, it comes from the combination of the last two letters of his first name with the first two letters of his last name. Supposedly he adopted that alias in order to make it look like his band at the time, The Swamp Zombies, could afford to hire someone else to do their albums’ cover art. In fact, a large part of the band’s creation was due to his desire to make the album art!

His simple-yet-detailed retro style has made him a smash hit, both in the world of Tiki and the art world in general. There’s even an exotica CD devoted to songs inspired by his work! Which is quite appropriate, seeing as how he was a founding member of The Tiki Tones.

But there is more to Shag than Tiki. As noted here, Mr. Agle does not want to be known as “just a Tiki artist” as they are only one of the many aspects of his work. His official website describes artwork as a “blend of hot rods, tiki heads, skeletons, voodoo lounge, and kustom kulture all rolled up in a swanky package.” His long list of influences also includes (but isn’t limited to) 60′s culture (mildly NSFW), spies, thieves (I’d love to see Shag’s take on Lupin III), blaxploitation, horror, and martial arts movies. And, as noted earlier, he often combines these to create unique and interesting (and spooky) works. If anything, Shag is a “rooms you wish you had in your home” artist.

For more on his work, please check out the following links:

Shag: The Art of Josh Agle by Josh Agle, Colin Berry, and Billy Shire.

Bottomless Cocktail: The Art of Shag by Shag.

Shag, ltd., fine art limited editions: a catalogue raisonné by Shag, Douglas Nason, Jeremy Cushner, and Greg Escalante.

Don’t just look at the art, either. Those books are filled with fascinating interviews and writings on Mr. Agle’s work. I especially liked his observation on Tiki bars in Bottomless Cocktail: The Art of Shag.

02/28/10

Custom Cover Art

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Maybe it’s due to the dream I had awhile back about a video store’s VHS clearance sale, but I’ve been thinking about custom cover art for VHS and DVD lately. More specifically, covers created by rental store employees after something happened to the original cover. I’ve only seen this happen a couple of times, with the styles ranging from hand drawn covers to “blank burst” advertising signs crammed it into a black clamshell case with the title written on in black marker. My personal favorite has to be a Children of the Corn cover consisting of a mostly B&W drawing of a corn stalk with a trickle of red ink “blood” on it. If memory serves me correctly, the artist even went through the trouble of designing a logo for the title instead of just scrawling it on in block letters.

However, I’ve noticed that practically everyone I’ve talked to about this has never been to a video store where this has happened. Instead, the stores used photocopies of the original cover art. Has anyone out there ever seen the sort of replacement covers I’m talking about?

Bonus links:

Printable custom DVD covers hosted by Retroslashers.

TheGreatWhiteDope’s custom DVD covers.

This page offers horror-themed printable CD/DVD covers which are similar to the cardboard slipcases used for promotional CDs.

These covers look great, but don’t seem to be printable.

This page has some examples of covers put out by a professional video company that look amateurish.

06/29/09

Cool Cover Art

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I love looking at the cover art on old horror movie VHS tapes. From lurid paintings to goofy staged photographs, they have a unique style that today’s DVD covers rarely match. So you can imagine my delight to discover Critical Condition Online’s cover art gallery. Not only does it have tons of cover scans, but it also lists the various home video companies of the 80′s/90′s, provides company histories and even includes scans of vintage promotional material!

04/4/09

Bob Eggleton Rules

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Who is Bob Eggleton? He’s a renowned sci-fi/fantasy/horror artist whose work has appeared on countless book and magazine covers. He’s won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist a whopping eight times, along with snagging the Chesley Award for Artistic Achievement. He’s even got an asteroid named after him! To see why he’s received such honors, check out the artwork at his official website, blog, and samples from The Book of Sea Monsters.