digital art

Winnie’s Weekly Wonders: Artistic Creations and TV Obsessions

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It’s been a week filled with artistic inspiration and thrilling TV marathons.

New Art Pieces

Ghouly Haunted Collage: I threw together a spooky haunted collage that kinda captures the eerie essence of the supernatural. I had the hardest time finding pieces for this, but it combines various elements to create a chilling yet captivating scene, right? Quick is not always good. But I had a fantastic time putting it together.

New Abstract Painting: Alongside the haunted collage, I’ve also completed a new painting. It’s another Hilma af Klint inspired piece. I love the color combo on this one. It was difficult to complete at the end, the large circles not coming together quite right. All-in-all, I love it.

TV Show Rewatch: Dexter

In addition to my artistic ventures, I’ve been rewatching the TV show Dexter, and let me tell you—I’m as hooked as ever! This morning I got up and heard the theme song playing over and over in my head. The intricate plot, the complex characters, and the dark humor make it an unforgettable experience every time. Michael C. Hall’s portrayal of Dexter Morgan is nothing short of brilliant, and the suspense keeps me on the edge of my seat. If you haven’t seen it yet, where have you been? It’s the perfect blend of crime, drama, and dark comedy.

Which of the crazy killers Dexter encountered were your favorites? Mine were the Ice Truck Killer and Hannah McKay. Here’s a starter list of the majors.

The Ice Truck Killer (Rudy Cooper/Brian Moser): Dexter’s biological brother, who taunts Dexter with crime scenes that hint at Dexter’s own past.

The Skinner (George King): A serial killer who tortures and skins his victims alive.

The Trinity Killer (Arthur Mitchell): A seemingly normal family man who has been committing a cycle of three murders at a time for decades.

The Barrel Girl Gang: A group of men who kidnap, rape, and kill women, storing their bodies in barrels. Dexter teams up with Lumen Pierce to take them down.

The Doomsday Killer (Travis Marshall): A delusional killer who believes he is enacting the Book of Revelation’s apocalyptic prophecies.

Hannah McKay: A former accomplice in a series of murders and Dexter’s love interest, who later becomes a killer herself.

Or another killer because I left off the Bay Harbor Butcher and some of the minor ones he encountered along the way were way COOL! There are certain episodes that stick with you.

This week has reminded me of the joy and fulfillment that come from balancing creative work with personal enjoyment. I hope you enjoy the new pieces I’ve shared and feel inspired.

Until next time…

Where have I been? Dabbling in the Occult…Collage

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WOW! Didn’t realize it’s been a month since my last post. Where have I been? Well, creating the collage to the left is one thing I’ve been up to. I love this one, although it took forever to come together. I started with just the star carved in wood background and placed all the other items, so this one was very involved.

Watched a few horror shows/movies worth watching. In Dark Harvest there’s a “deadly annual ritual in a small town and Sawtooth Jack, rises from the cornfields and challenges the town’s teenage boys in a bloody battle of survival.” All around good acting, characters, effects, etc. Generally a slasher movie if you like that sort of movie, which I was up for when I watched. Also appreciated that they set it in the 1940s.

Also enjoyed Midnight Mass, “an isolated island community experiences miraculous events – and frightening omens – after the arrival of a charismatic, mysterious young priest.” Overall great story line with well rounded characters. Very much about relationships with horror around holding on to the past.

Making some progress on The Pumpkin and the Jinn. New page to show off. Here, the pumpkin wishes himself into a dark truck on the way to market. He’s not very happy about it. I just noticed I haven’t added tears to this one, so back to that page for some more details.

I’ve been having a lot more fun with Adobe’s Firefly AI image generator. If you’d like to see more fun with the Grim Reaper, drop by my Instagram account. There are also a few more for the Heaven and Hell series there.

So, I’ve been pretty busy with art projects. Not so busy with writing, although I have been playing with a few AI text generators, including EditPad, Sudowrite, and Claude. Really love how Sudowrite works, so I’m thinking of writing a series with it. EditPad is good for a blog post and I’m pretty impressed with how little editing I need to do with what it generates for free. I need to spend more time on Claude, but I did ask it to write a story about Nita, who will serve Satan by running his restaurant on Earth in her own series after the end of the Angels Dark and Dumb first trilogy is complete in The Corner of Hell and Second Chances. I gave it no history about the series, so it made everything up including the main character’s name. Here’s the prompt and the story if you’re interested in reading it. The story’s not that interesting and doesn’t have much of a plot, but it’s well written.

Here is a fantasy story about a waitress who works in Satan’s diner, and is a God-created daughter of light possessed by a demon:

The Fallen Daughter

Amara had been an angel once – a pure daughter of light created by God himself to bring joy and grace to the mortal realm. But that had all changed the night the demon Malacai invaded her celestial form, twisting her brilliant aura into smoldering embers of corruption.

Now she walked among the denizens of the underworld, trapped as a server at Lucifer’s Pit Stop Diner on the outskirts of Hell. Her once radiant beauty was still evident beneath the demonic possession – flowing blonde locks, porcelain skin, and haunting azure eyes. But they stood in stark contrast to the infernal diner and its customers.

“Order up!” growled the flaming cook, Belior, sliding a platter of molten lava cakes onto the scorching hot counter. Amara snatched it up, the searing heat not even fazing her tainted flesh.

She wove between the booths packed with belching hellhounds, cackling witches, and foul-mouthed dwarven miners fresh off the night shift. Reaching a secluded corner table, she stopped before its solitary occupant – a wizened demon with ash-gray skin and curved horns protruding from a misshapen skull.

“Your desssssert,” Amara hissed, her voice a mixture of celestial harmony and demonic rasp as Malacai’s influence briefly flickered across her face.

The demon barely looked up from the arcane tome he was studying. With a clawed hand, he waved her off in clear dismissal. Amara’s jaw clenched in frustration. Even in this wretched place, she refused to be treated like a common servant.

Defiantly, she slammed the molten lava cakes down on the table, splattering small globs across the demon’s precious book. He reared back with a animalistic snarl of rage. Before he could utter a curse, Amara locked eyes with him, her irises pulsing brilliant blue for just a moment.

The demon instantly calmed, his anger melting away into an almost trancelike calm. With a slight nod, he returned to his studies as if nothing had occurred. Amara spun on her heel and continued on her rounds, a small smile playing across her lush lips.

The demon’s willpower was negligible compared to the strength of angelic mind control granted by her divine origins. Malacai’s possession had robbed her of so much light and goodness, but some holy powers still lingered. One day she would break free from this wicked place, Amara vowed to herself. One day soon.

A Good Horror TV Shows & a Werewolf Gets a Manicure

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Werewolves need manicures too! This is what AI thinks it looks like. Stumped again! I had a hard time finding just the right style and mood for these AI generated images. The challenge was keeping the werewolf in the picture. It wanted to replace it with humans like it did with the demons. This is my favorite. More on my Instagram account. Searches were progressive, starting with the first keywords below.

werewolf getting a manicure; werewolf with red nail polish; werewolf filing claws; spa setting; long claws; smiling; towel; yellow glowing eyes; wax treatment;

I watched the new Fall of the House of Usher series over the last few weeks and it was awesome and highly suggested. The modern take on Edgar Allan Poe was quite well done. Creative spins on the deaths of the family members. Interesting that I had reread the main tale recently and then saw the show on Netflix, which of course was the driving factor to get me started. What shall I do next?

Also want to mention that I’ve been working on a children’s book I wrote a number of years ago, The Mouse Jinn and the Pumpkin. The mouse to the left the main character in the story. His magic is in his red mittens. Like most jinns, he grants wishes that don’t always turn out as expected. I’ve finished all the mice for the illustrations and have started the backgrounds for the story. The book will be done and out before Halloween this year under my real name, Wendy Spurlin. Stay tuned for some more images.

New Collage and AI Image Generated Grim Reapers

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. Mostly busy.

Here’s a steampunk collage I created this week. It started with the hat and grew 20 more images from there. Maybe a bit busy, but there’s something to look at in every nook and cranny.

More art worth a look is my AI image generated Grim Reapers. Two sets are available on Instagram. My focus is stumping the image generators with bizarre asks, so I asked for Grim Reaper sitting on toilet in gas station; with rats. Then I asked for grim reaper; holding balloons; kids birthday party; cake; presents; with children. If you have any weird mixes in mind, add a comment below.

And I’ve got a movie suggestion for ya. Little Bone Lodge with Joely Richardson, who I love. She can play some really creepy characters. “Set during a vicious storm, two criminal brothers on the run seek refuge in a desolate farmhouse. Taking the resident family captive, they find the house holds dark secrets of its own.” This movie is really twisted. More psychological thriller than gory blood and guts. The movie was well done and the acting was good. You can watch it on Tubi, but look for the movie title The Last Exit there.

That’s all from me. Have a great week!

A Few Weeks Later

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I’ve had an incredibly busy few weeks, reason #1 why I skipped out on blog posts the last few weeks.

I did have time to put together this collage. A zombie walk of sorts. I’ve been doing a lot of work in Photoshop lately. Also finished up some illustrations for a book by another author and am trying to format the book with the best illustration sizes and such. Trying to figure out images in eBooks has been my latest challenge. Sure it sounds easy, but getting them a small and readable size is not the easiest, especially considering how illustrations or photos are so different depending on how they are created.

Now that I’ve bored you, let me bore you some more. I added a new blog post to the ArmLin House blog. Note that my editor and artist (non-horror related.) name is Wendy Spurlin. How to Standardize the Punctuation in a Manuscript Before Submitting or Formatting Your Book is all about what it says. It’s a pet peeve of mine to read a book and find all different types of punctuation like straight quotation marks vs slanted, the later being the correct format for a published book.

I watched Five Nights at Freddy’s, and it’s a fun horror movie for kids as well as adults. I added kids because I found it very light horror, and one of the main characters is a child. I’ve decided to continue watching horror movies I haven’t seen because the holiday season has begun and there will be plenty of themed horror movies to watch. Finding new ones will be challenging though!

Sorry, nothing new on Angels Dark and Dumb other than chapter 2 was handed over for critique. It needs a lot of work. I thought about doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I’m in the middle of too much with ArmLin House, so it didn’t happen.

All I got for ya this time. Have a great week!