Gouache on 4 x 6 inch canvas board

When I was a little girl in grade school my mother made me a complete flower fairy costume out of pink, dark rose, and green, crepe paper.  It was very puffy, rustled appropriately in a mysterious fashion (to my ears), and felt very prin-cess -y and magical.  I think I was in the second grade, so I was seven.  She sewed this confection of design on the sewing machine just like it was fabric leaving the back open for me to climb into, and then taped it shut.  In those days you could buy crepe paper in large sheets – not just the streamer rolls we have now.  It was the practice at my school to have a grand parade at 4:00 pm and all of us who wanted to go home and get into costume were encouraged to do so.  We met back on the school grounds and then the teachers and a few parents chaperoned us around the entire block so we could show ourselves off.  My costume was a great hit as I stood out brightly among the witches, ghosts, and hobos!  Unfortunately, about half way through the parade I realized I really needed to use the restroom.  I couldn’t leave the line-up without an adult, and I was too shy to tell anyone I needed to use the bathroom in an immediate way.  The rest is history… but lets just say this, crepe paper is not color fast if exposed to moisture. 

For the funny little pumpkin painting, which I used as a greeting card, I cut the head from a baby photo of my grandson, glued it down on the canvas panel, and then painted gesso over the face, after the gesso dried I added some pink cheeks and enhanced the eyes just a little.  I painted the pumpkin hat around his head,  painted a pumpkin shape, added his arms in a position that would have been appropriate for his age in the photo, and stuck some feet on.  A dark blue sky and a sliver of a moon with an old fashioned face, and a dark horizon line and foreground.  I made color copies on textured vintage “duro-tex canvas painting paper,” glued them to a yellow ochre background paper and glued that to some heavy black paper  and sent one to each of my daughters as a halloween greeting.  I confess that I saw this idea for using a baby head and a painted  pumpkin shape in a magazine, but I cannot remember which magazine it was, and I hope whoever had the original idea will not be offended (and I sincerely apologize if you are) by my plagiaristic detour from the original idea!  (Their’s was cuter, because they had several babies in a field!)

Hap “Bee” Halloween!