There Be Monsters In Them There Waters... Spooky Illustrations 2025 Continues.
Welcome back, Friends, as Spooky Season continues. I have been working on more illustrations... obviously... which means I am working on more blog posts.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Sabina Music Rich/Unsplash.
Anyway, Spooky Season has been here for a few weeks now, and I hope you all have been taking advantage of ALL the Spooky things you can do in your community. I certainly have, and I'll be sharing some of my Spooky adventures very soon in an upcoming post. In the meantime, let me share a little bit about the illustrations I have been working on this Season:
As many of you may know, I participated in Inktober last year, and it almost killed me lol. Well almost... Which is appropriate for the season. It's such an intense and dedicated thing to participate in. I've done it twice and, to be honest, I think I'm "done" with that. I've done it and that's enough for me. It was such a grueling art challenge, just thinking about it gives me the "chills."
It made me miss the Good Ole Days of Illustration Friday... I know. I talk about I.F. ALL THE TIME and whine about its absence from this dark and horrible world we are now living in. However, I really did enjoy those art challenges. A week is a perfect amount of time to develop and complete an Illustration. So, this year, when Inktober was gearing up, I decided that I would do something a little different to participate. I decided I would do weekly Spooky Season-themed illustrations based on one of their daily prompts as if it were Illustration Friday. I would make an illustration, blog about it, and post it.
I have made one additional new discovery regarding Inktober. It's Inktober 52. A weekly drawing challenge that is year-round. I may participate in 2026. As for now, I reviewed their weekly prompt, reviewed 7 of the daily prompts for regular Inktober, and then chose one of those prompts to base an illustration on. Now, I know what you may be thinking... that's cheating... and maybe it is, a little, but it's not like I had anything in my head for any of the prompts as I was reviewing it, then picking the one that closely fit what I already had in mind... I didn't have ANYTHING in mind. I just picked the prompt that most appealed to me, and then I brainstormed illustration ideas for it.
So, now, Spooky Season Illustrations 2025 is on... This week's prompt was "Squid." I immediately thought of the Giant Squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and then began to imagine, "What would a Giant Squid dress up as for Halloween if it could dress up?" And while many of you may think "Oh, Captain Nemo would be an excellent choice," I wouldn't say that any of you are wrong, necessarily, but it's just not what I wanted to illustrate. I was thinking, definitely a fisherman, and I have a romantic affinity for vintage fishermen, particularly. Considering the trouble and danger that today's oceans are in, thanks to humans, it seems appropriate that a Giant Squid might dress up as an old fisherman in protest.
For as long as man could draw or write or communicate, they have been expressing their understanding of man's relationship to nature. This is one of the main themes that runs through 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in both the Disney adaptation and within the Jules Verne novel on which the film is based. Through technology, an extension of man, we explore freedom within the confines of both the submarine and the depths of the Ocean. However, there is also a struggle with Mother Nature. This appears as a common theme in human art and expression. We more often than not seem to pit ourselves against Nature as opposed to learning how to both explore freedom and technology as well as coexist with Nature instead of destroying it as if it were our enemy and obstacle. Verne embodies this struggle within the Giant Squid that Captain Nemo and his crew must face in the story. At the end of the film, or novel (pick your poison), man is victorious over Nature. However, does it HAVE to ALWAYS be this way? Nature as our adversary and a villain?
I personally enjoy stories that flip this coin and show how man is truly the villain and intruder into Nature. Our unwillingness to coexist makes us a parasite on this planet, taking and destroying instead of nurturing and growing. Bambi is an excellent example of a story in which Man vs. Nature, but nature is victorious. Secret of Nimh is also a good story where Man is the villain that Nature must overcome. While there are stories out there in the world that discuss this topic, humans are apparently willfully ignorant and don't want to hear about how we are the problem that will likely cause our own existential demise.... but no one wants to hear that... and so we blissfully ignore it in our ignorance.
We HAVE to wake up and not only understand the damage and harm we are doing to our planet, but also how we can begin to try to be a solution to a problem that we ourselves created. We have to take taking care of our planet more seriously... You know, if we REALLY want to stay in existence as a species. Aside from the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation (the destruction of our natural air filtration system), we are causing biodiversity loss. Plainly speaking, we are destroying natural habitats through urban and agricultural expansion, which threatens the existence of many species of animals and plants. Overexploitation: we are overfishing, overhunting out of greed, and unsustainable food consumption. Not to mention illegal wildlife trade and poaching.... Humans Are The Problem.
Many Scientists predict that Humans will be the cause of the Human Extinction Event. Ani DiFranco has this really great lyric: "When the Earth shurgs us off like dinosaurs." It's so poignant and very true. The Earth has lasted for many years, and the anti-climate change movement is right about one thing: the Earth will continue to be here... but the more important question is "Will we?" Will we survive the damage we created, or will we be the architects of our own demise? That would be poetic and kinda very human; the animal that was so destructive that it literally self-destructs... when the Earth just has had ENOUGH of us and just... shrugs us off. We can't say that we don't deserve it or that we weren't warned by the smartest of our kind...
A very heavy and macabre thought to have... very appropriate to Spooky Season for sure. There are plenty of horror tales that utilize the "I did this to myself" trope... but do we, as a species, have the capability to listen and act? I guess we will see.
Let's talk a little about the illustration, now...
I kind of have this obsession with turn of the 20th century fishermen, 20s fishermen, 30s fishermen, 40s fishermen... just fishermen lol. But I am very keen on this particular outfit or uniform... though it's not really a uniform, but so many fishermen are portrayed wearing it. I love this sort of spear-shaped yellow rain cap with a long yellow raincoat, and tall black boots. I swear I must have been married to a fisherman like this in a past life lol.
I wanted my Giant Squid to wear this particular kind of outfit because it would be instantaneously recognized as this very particular type of fisherman for a very particular era of time. And while it is no Captain Nemo, I like the idea of Nature embodying the visage of its oppressor, its destroyer, and its adversary. In this way, Nature is expressing its freedom through directly acknowledging that which is oppressing it, as if it is facing its adversary head-on. It's like it is taking the power of the fishermen so that it can "fish" for men.
I thought this was a fun approach to a serious topic, while adding the flavor of Spooky Season to it. I wanted to create an almost symmetrical composition with this one. I played with the different ways the Squid would use its tentacles. I thought about which tentacles would be wearing the coat sleeves as well as which ones would wear the boots. I thought about what sort of elements the Squid would carry as its Halloween Costume Props: A spear for hunting and an anchor ripped from a ship it sent to the bottom of the Ocean. I wanted them to be symbols of how man believes that it dominates the Ocean and how easily Man can be toppled over. Since I knew that the wardrobe would mostly be yellow, I felt that employing a simple complementary color scheme would be the best way to go with color. This was a very easy illustration to figure out the color, for the most part. I wanted to play with this serious topic in a fun and amusing way with this illustration... Plus, I LOVE drawing animals in human clothing, as well as I LOVE drawing characters in Halloween costumes. So this particular illustration was quite fun to work on... even if its origins are dark, political, and very serious. But isn't that kind of the point of Halloween also?
All Hallows' Eve is a celebration of the reaping of the harvest, the death of another season, and the beginning of winter. We take a very serious transition of life and death within the cycle of the planet and transform it into frivolity and frolic. We celebrate the dark and terrifying things that live deep within our psyches and outside in the world, and for a period of time, we dance with them. Perhaps it is the best time of the Ocean to take back its power and show man what they are REALLY dealing with. Humans beware when you take too much from Nature... Nature may take it all back and roll you under its waves and wrap its giant tentacles around you as it pulls you under into eternal slumber. A watery grave for a foolish and arrogant little animal that thought it was master here. To Davey Jones Locker with you...
...or maybe humans can learn how to coexist on this planet... before it decides to shrug us all off completely.
Happy Halloween, Friends.
Until next time, Friends,
Keep dreaming, keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing, and most important of all, keep making art.
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