Old World, New World

We have a meeting of worlds today - I finished my latest witch for 'Good Witches Bad Witches' and she joins the others - last photo below. She is American (Texan, specifically) and I really hope I've done her justice!

She stands at 5.5 inches tall and is a little more portly than I intended. She wears denim, a plaid shirt, cowboy boots, and a western style witch's hat. Her familiar is an armadillo (see, that's why I wanted to do Texas!) Incidentally, there will be three American witches eventually, as I didn't feel that one is enough to represent the vast United States. Also, I carved out her miniature Jack O' Lantern and put an LED light inside so that it glows under her warty chin.

A note to my American friends...
If you follow this blog, specifically the project 'Good Witches Bad Witches' (which is being developed as a film based on my books), you'll see that I am creating my characters based on all sorts of stereotypes and that they come in all sorts of funny shapes and sizes. I am creating this world and these characters because I love the subject matter (I even wrote a book called 'The Witch's Day" when I was 6 years old and got a little write-up in the paper). I mean to entertain and certainly in no way offend, so please take this character in the spirit in which it is intended, take a look at my other witches, and if you have any feedback please do leave a comment (they're never censored here) or email me. I'd love to hear from you! :)

See my work in progress below and a final shot of some of my European witches and the American (Texan).

STAY IN TOUCH!
Don't forget to follow my progress on Instagram, Facebook and find out more about me (Caroline McFarlane-Watts) and Tall Tales Productions at the website here.

stop-motion film, Disney Pixar film, Tim Burton stop-motion film, Laika in development, Laika Studios, Aardman

A Witching Time of Night

I must have lived in the US too long because I started creating a Halloween scene in mid September! This is for a book, but (as is often the case) you can buy props from the scene from my shop.

Here's a snippet of what I've been up to. All kinds of pumpkins and squash in one inch miniature scale. Everything made by me. You can see my sketches below (one of these designs didn't end up being made as it looked a little too reminiscent of Jack Skellington from Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'). 

You may recognise photos of the green warty pumpkins from almost two years ago. They ended up not being needed until now, so I just finished that scene this week.

If you're still following the 'Good Witches Bad Witches' project then don't worry, I've almost finished the next addition! I haven't stopped creating witches from Europe yet, but I am skipping straight to North America for this next witch. (I'll get back to European witches soon and you'll start seeing Russian, Polish, Swiss, Swedish, Dutch witches...)

If you follow my work on Instagram or Facebook then you've probably already seen this photo of my Texan witch.



Pumpkin / Halloween work-in-progress photos.

In other news, just after I last posted I went to the Stop Motion Festival out here (in Glendora) and it was enormous fun. If you're in California next September then you must check it out (details here). I even had a great chat with Joe Clokey! 

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Quote from Shakespeare.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world.

My Neck of the Woods

Halloween is fast approaching and it's my favourite time of the year. It puts me in mind of things like Michael Jackson's Thriller music video which I watched and watched to death as a teen. Driving home the other day it occurred to me that I (the girl from a minuscule English village that Brits haven't even heard of), now live right around the corner from two of the Thriller music video locations. (And I was also lucky enough to meet the director of the video, John Landis last weekend...!)

The cinema at the beginning of the music video, where Michael Jackson and Ola Ray watch the Werewolf film, is just 15 minutes away from my house. It's the Downtown Palace Theater.








And the spooky house that Ola Ray runs into towards the end of the music video, is a Victorian house on Carroll Ave, which is 10 minutes from my house.

This is the house - then and now! (Photo not taken by me. Photographer unknown.)

Actually all the houses on Carroll Avenue are gorgeous, and yesterday I took a photo of one of the houses which has been decorated in a fantastically Angelino way for Halloween.

Click to zoom.

But enough about my neck of the woods. Over at Tall Tales Productions I have completed some Halloween Jack O' Lanterns and crows (actually the crows have been blogged about before, here) and as usual, am selling clean out of everything this Halloween. Actually I am really looking forward to Halloween being over so I can stop creating for collectors and get back to something filmy.

And whilst we're on the topic of how Angelinos do Halloween, take a look at these photos below, taken by my little sister in Villandry. This is how they do Halloween in France. Wonderful isn't it?!

Leave it Out

Last night I dreamt about leaves. Tiny, miniature hand-painted leaves. The night before I also dreamt about leaves. This is what happens when you perform the same leaf-making task 400 times over.

So, I've been making hundreds of leaves and completed three identical green pumpkin patches - one for an exhibition, two for sale elsewhere. Aside from that, I have been putting something together for my first appearance in a Dutch magazine, working on some other pieces (which I'll share when they're further along) and... best of all... I met director John Landis over the weekend!

What a great time of year to meet the director of one of my all-time favourite horror films. LACMA did a screening of 'An American Werewolf in London' (a film I know so well I can quote almost every line of dialogue before the actor says it) and I was able to have a chat with John Landis himself, and his talented costume designer wife, Deborah Nadoolman Landis. It's Halloween this month and if you haven't seen 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981), then I'd make seeing it this scary season a top priority. It's hugely underrated and totally genius. Not to mention the jaw-droppingly fantastic special make-up effects by Rick Baker. It was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Make-up (the category was created that year).

Here are some photos of leaves and the base for the pumpkin patch. The fence is willow, the base is celluclay and mixed media, and the leaves are paper.

From Ghoulies and Ghosties

I love that old passage from a Scottish / Cornish prayer.
"From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!"

It's Halloween this month, I have three events scheduled for it, and yesterday I braved the 106 degree weather and went to the amazing garment district in downtown LA to buy leather, tartan and gold embroidery thread for the costume I'm making... I'll blog about it later in the month once I've made it.

Aside from that I am preparing some pieces for an exhibition of my work (coming up) and also pieces for Halloween this year. Over the weekend I received my copy of another magazine I make an appearance in. It's five pages plus the front cover. See a previous blog post about this project here. The About section of my blog shows a snapshot of all my print features / books to date.

So... here's a glimpse at my workspace, below. The pieces are not yet finished.... just a few ghoulish green pumpkins and squash that will form part of one exhibition piece.

And here's a snap of the bits and bobs I bought downtown. Correctly guess who I'm going to be for Halloween this year and I'll reward you with a gift coupon for my shop...!

A Murder of Crows

Recently I've been working on a commissioned feature for a magazine - a miniature scene in which the central focus is a scarecrow. A relatively quick job I thought, as I unpacked a tidy selection of materials including armature wire, raffia and air dry clay... of course it's 10 days later and I'm now wading through a mass of black feathers, gauze and superglue.

I managed to take a break from this project to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform live at the brilliant Ace Theater (an evening of Black Crow King didn't hurt in terms of inspiration), and ironically enough I just discovered a great bar in my area (Los Feliz / Silverlake) called 'The Thirsty Crow'...!

Here are some pictures of this project in progress. The un-finished scarecrow photos were just taken quickly today whilst glue was drying. You can see the final scene soon as I will blog about it here and upload images to my Tall Tales Facebook page here.