Woodland creatures on parade

Well I'm posting this on all the sites that I frequent, because I'm just tickled with how it turned out. Although by calling it "Twilight Halloween Parade" I might be inadvertently inviting fans of a certain sparkly vampire series to click on it, that was certainly not my intention. Sometimes 'twilight' does in fact refer to the time of day!

I like the long rectangle as a canvas size and I have a few blank ones lying around for other purposes. Since I'm not a fan of stretching my own canvases (believe me, I would just break everything in the house in my attempt to stretch them...and also my entire workspace is one-half of the sofa, so I don't have a lot of room to maneuver) I am happy when they offer interesting sizes in the stores.

The critters in this painting are inspired by my woodland friends and things I've encountered over the summer. The woods have been full of mushrooms in every shape, size and colour this summer, and I've seen an unusual variety of moths and caterpillars even during the day (though not a luna moth yet this year, I am sure they are around). As for black cats, well I have one so they are always around. We had an owl in the vicinity this year that I heard many times at night, and we had bats in the attic last year -- this year I helped to build bat houses for a conservation group. The ponds were full of giant snails and everywhere I went I seemed to be walking smack into a spiderweb.

So here is a little parade of my friends as they carry their jack o'lanterns on a trick or treating expedition. This painting will be featured in the Etsy holiday showcase tomorrow most likely, and I will try to book another showcase spot later in the month for something or other as well.