Magical crystals, unicorn, witch flowers and dark omens

In the weeks before Halloween, I have a mixed bag of art and styles that isn't sticking strictly to the black and orange pumpkin theme. I've been through a few phases lately, so I present these here just as a sampling of some art that is currently available. Watercolors in shades of blue, pink and purple; unicorns; dragons, psychedelic and gothic ladies; and a new favorite style of mine which is to create a "cabinet of curiosity" style assemblage in a painting featuring bones, shells, rocks, crystals, insects, plants and other oddities and pleasantries.

Here are a few new items, both originals and prints (prints are available if the original painting sold) before I crack down on putting together a grouping of Halloween-specific items!

Angels and snowdrops

The angel book illustrations are virtually finished - I only have one more to complete. That's 10 canvases, two sides so there are a total of 20 images, plus some extra stuff for the front, back etc -- whew! Here's one illustrating a moonlight/star/night time theme.

And the accompanying angel.

And just because, here are some snowdrops. The first flowers of spring. They're a little late, because we had so much snow, but as long as we're talking about angels...these have a bit of a hopeful message I think.

Ghastly ghost flowers

This summer, it has been unusually rainy in New Jersey -- it rained almost every day in June, and July was unseasonably cool and damp as well. One of the results of this downpour has been the proliferation of every type of mushroom in the woods. And among the strange collection of yellow and brown amanitas, jelly molds and fungus, death caps and destroying angels, a strange flower blooms.

I walk in the woods almost every day that the weather cooperates, even if only for a few minutes, but I have never before seen the elusive Indian Pipe in one of my favorite walking places, though I have looked for them in the darkest shadows among the mushrooms. Pale and waxy, they resemble mushrooms themselves - a tiny cluster of pale white stems bearing drooping bell-like blossoms. Flecked with the dark soil from which they erupt after a heavy rain, they seem to favor woods like the one I frequent, full of birch and beech, pine and poplar.

Among their other names are ghost flower, corpse plant, and fairy smoke -- quite a poetic plant! With that in mind I imagined that at its roots a wan fairy might lie in wait beneath the earth. I will probably do several paintings on this theme, but this is the first. I haven't decided whether to offer her up for Etsy or eBay yet, but I wanted to share her right away.