shoot the moon

i was to color the object that began with a T (it was a tie) so i colored all over its general area with my blue crayon. i was 5, and my kindergarten teacher didn't like my coloring skills. i was taken aside and shown the proper way to stay in the lines and actually make the outline look like the object it represented. while "coloring outside the lines" became an individualist's badge of honor for my generation, it isn't a method that serves every artistic intent. Tolkien didn't write all over the walls, he put Lord of the Rings in a book. you don't toss apples and cinnamon in the oven and hope for the best, you follow the apple pie recipe.
after i was taught how to color in the lines, i loved drawing. i don't know how much paper and how many crayons i went through in my childhood. i got addicted to "making stuff" especially if that stuff made a space a little prettier, or a little more festive. other people spent Black Friday shopping, i spent it cutting out snowflakes to tape to the windows. by high school, i wanted to go into special effects make-up, or movie set designing. i wanted my "lines" to be a director's vision, and my "crayons" to be sculpting tools and paint. but i just couldn't get excited about moving to Hollywood, so i began to wonder if it was the story i was trying to express, rather than its illustrations. so i switched to a writing major.
i graduated from college the year that everyone started a blog and newspapers starting dropping like flies. nothing had happened to me yet, so i had nothing to write about. i took a desk job. i left art to my off time. after a few too many years, i wondered how some people got to be what they wanted, and poor saps like me had to "direct your call." by then i was nuts for cookies, but i had a portfolio to build.
so i built one. and i found that cookie decorating is just coloring in the lines, and making a moment a little more festive and pretty. it's expressing a vision, fooling the eye, telling a story, suspending disbelief, wowing an audience, and taking you back to age 5 for a little while.

in kindergarten i was a witch for Halloween, and i wanted to be an artist when i grew up...

which will the witch wear?

i did some more airbrush tests (which i can't show you because that picture's file is broken but whatever, they were tests, right?) and was pleased with how they turned out, so i put on my witch hat (no, i'm kidding) and got to work on some Halloween ideas. more magic is forthcoming; for now, i present: witch dresses!
these were a blast. (airbrush joke) i think every cookier has this dress cutter (Sur la Table) but i added the partial oval at the top to accommodate a hanger--i thought it gave it a little more context, after all a dress either has a person in it, or you hang it up, right?
i used to be annoyed at the inclusion of purple in the Halloween pallete. i think when it was a new trend, it seemed to be taking over orange's place. but lately, and with it's new friend poison green, Halloween's color scheme is kind of spooky-carnival-esque. like once upon a time these colors were painted brightly on Halloween decorations and eventually aged to a macabre patina, inspiring Tim Burton to revive them on the big screen. inspiring me to find a piece of lace to drape over the skirt portion of the cookie and spray with black. and i think they put the "boo" in "booya."
i used sanding sugar on the collar and cuffs, pearl dust on the hanger (silver on black icing) and waistband (bronze on orange) and silver dragees for buttons. this would be equally awesome as ivory on white wedding dresses with pearl dust. or bright colors, different necklines, different stencils... [*daydreaming*]
coming really soon, some Halloween cookies take flight! plus a football/sci-fi twin birthday, "los muertos!", and maybe some wine?
p.s., thanks for all the facebook and twitter love after the camels were posted! i felt kind of famous this week :)

happy halloween!!

here's one idea i had for cookies-as art. propping the darn things up was challenging, i think next time i'll resize them and lay them flat. raise your hand if you'd like to see more in a picture book :)













and here are eldra's 3 designs for october. more later, as i hafta run to a halloween party (you betcha i'm bringing cookies!) but i just loooved making the little bones and corn kernels. piping is awesome.