Haunted By An En-ti-ty

So, as expected, last week I finished up that cassette cover in record speed, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out:

This is for Assembly at Dusk's demo which you can listen to here.  They were pretty easy going about the artwork and I mostly focused on making something that was simple that would be readable and have impact at such a small size.  The name "Assembly at Dusk" immediately makes me think of bats congregating and they had sent me some lyrics involving a specter so I went from there.  I'm especially happy with the sky.  It seems like I'll never tire of painting clouds.  I still have to design a logo for them and lay this out but that should be done soon enough.

I tried to jump right back into my personal work for the show but because what I'm working on now is so big, I don't have a lot to show for it.  I finally got this big medusa painting inked and to the painting stage but looking at it this morning I'm not happy with the static face and might need to spend another day fussing over it before I can start the endless task of painting scales:

On a side note, this weekend I found out about and began obsessing over Hexenkopf rock, a supposedly haunted hill in Easton PA with a ton of local legend associated with it.  The name translates to "Witch's  Head" and it is supposedly the sight of all kinds of ghostly apparitions, has links to Braucherei practice, a strange glowing quality at night, and is responsible for all kinds of suicides, house fires and strange events.  At any rate after I read about it I rounded up my friends to go there the next day.

 Like most of rural PA it's beautiful, and surrounded by old barns and PA dutch cemeteries which I did quite a bit of creeping in. 

When you're up on the rock itself the acoustics are really strange.  When I climbed up I suddenly heard clear as a bell hundreds of chirping frogs that I couldn't hear as I approached.  The area is really pretty and the rocks are covered in moss and lichen. I also found a headless squirrel hanging from a branch.  It was probably a hawk but it COULD have been a witch.  Pretty sure that's how these things get started. 

I was also delighted to see this protective Sator Square hex sign on the adjacent barn.

Anyway, this has sent me on a spree of book hunting and I think a theme for some new stuff (after this show) will be Pennsylvania magic and folklore.  Top of my list is this book, which possibly can only be bought (for a reasonable price) from the Sigal museum in Easton.  Sometimes I really love Pennsylvania.