My favorite week of the year is here and it involves sending out my annual Halloween card featuring my long suffering dog Bingo in some form of mortal danger. Each year I agonize over it; second guessing myself, re-sketching, re-painting, changing it at the last minute up until the 11th hour. I always think I am so behind schedule until I look at the date the card went out the previous year and am surprised to see it is always sent at the last minute.

This year I decided to change it up a bit and go back to the sepia toned look of "Ghost Stories for Dogs" and "Sleepy Hollow". It was a tough decision because I was so happy with the 1950's sci fi look of the previous 2 years "Outer Space Bingo" and "Deep Sea Bingo". I originally got it into my head that Bingo as a mummy would be funny. That evolved however into Bingo playing the role of Howard Carter and being the one who discovers the mysterious dog mummy. I really wanted to stress the darkness of a tomb and show everything lit by lantern light which was no small challenge. Poor Bingo had to pose standing upright above a spot light while my friend took photos. I also posed one of his dog toys propped up with its arms out to see how the light might fall onto a dog mummy, if one actually existed. In the end it was the light source that made the whole thing work. I even had to let go of all the hieroglyphics and cave paintings I had put into the background when I knew it had to be inky dark to make the action going on in the foreground stand out. When I thought I was finished and ready to lay the card out, I had the idea to make it look like an old torn photo in order to stress the vintage over all feel. I found some old book reference on-line and fiddled with it in Photoshop until I came up with the finished product.

It is always so hard to keep the finished image in my mind as it goes through the various stages from sketch to finish.

Sometimes I have to get creative when trying to imagine something that doesn't actually exist and it comes in handy being a collector of eclectic objects to use as stand ins!  Prints of Bingo in the Land of the Pharaohs are available for sale in my Etsy shop Curious Portraits.