DIY Halloween decor

Halloween has always been my favorite time of year. My earliest reasoning for loving this holiday was that all kids could participate. It wasn't just something rich kids did. Even poor kids could create amazing costumes, it felt like the first equal holiday, and this made my heart so happy.

So my house has always been heavily decorated for Halloween, and I tend to leave a lot of decor out all year round. It's gothic, it fits my aesthetic, I see no need to put it away.

My kids had asked for some new decorations. They see houses with painted wood characters on their lawns, and they wanted me to try that for our house.

First step, acquire the wood. This wood was discarded, and thin enough to cut. It'll do perfectly. It's roughly 4 feet by 2 feet in size.

Now, figure out what is going where. I don't use pencils to predraw paintings. I dive right in to painting. It's much more fun than way. I know so much will change along the way of the painting, it's fruitless for me to plan it out too far at this point.

Kids voted for The Nightmare before Christmas themed signs.

After stepping back to take a look at everything, I noticed that Zero (the dog) looked way too huge. And, I wanted to add Jack in at the last moment, looking at Zero. (The reason for the drastic light change, is I start work at 4am lol so sometimes I'm photographing my art in the wee dark mornings, or sometimes it's daylight and I get the natural light advantage.)

When my daughter saw Jack, she insisted I had to include Sally. See why I don't pre pencil my paintings lol. I make too many changes along the way. It's part of my process, I feel too stuck if I try to imagine the whole painting at once, and stick solely to the original idea. I *must* be able to improvise artistically along the way.

I've also divided the two seperate art pieces. One is purple, the other is blue. I will use a jigsaw to cut out the unpainted parts. I'll secure wooden stakes to the bottom of the pieces, to secure them into the ground. Seal them with varnish to ensure longevity.

By now, it's time to focus on one part of the large piece and get it done, then move to the next.

My littlest loves to help paint. This is one of my favorite photos, I love to see my kids helping and learning about the craft. The future generation of artists-not ruined by A.I.

Still have 6-8 hours of painting to go at least on this. Then cutting the wood, and assembling and varnishing. I’ll wrap it up in another post.