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"Strange Light"

One day while contemplating my next haunted painting, I received an email from a devoted fan. It read as follows:

    "I snapped this picture about eight years ago... I was quite taken by the house, which, when it was built, was probably quite elegant, but ... had been left to disintegrate. I talked to the local realtor about it. She said many people had offered to buy the house over the years and rescue it from its continuing destruction, but the old lady has refused to sell. She had suffered a great disappointment in love and could not bring herself to live in the house, nor let anyone else live in it either. Eight years ago, when I was making this inquiry, she was still alive and living in a nursing home, unwilling to sell the house, declaring that it would die along with her. The realtor said it was a pity because everything in it was original, and at that time it was over 100 years old." 

    The photo and its accompanying story caught my fancy, and I began to imagine the house as it might appear today, long abandoned, slowly declining, forlorn and neglected among neighboring houses with far more commonplace stories to tell. As I imagined the old lady, now undoubtedly deceased, and her tragic story, I began to imagine the sort of supernatural happenings that might well manifest themselves, from time to time, within the house, perhaps any night, but especially around Halloween. Matter of fact, precisely the sort of happenings our young trick-or-treaters have suddenly (and startlingly) observed.

     What's even spookier though is that neither they -- nor you, for that matter -- have yet realized that there is a second shadowy figure watching them as well. The moment they do, I'll bet they'll be high-tailing it directly home! 

        Folks who received the Haunted Studio newsletter at the time, watched "Strange Light" develop from original photo through preliminary. then final sketches, and finally to the painting you see here. (If you'd like to receive future newsletters with behind-the-easel stories and special offers, click the Newsletter link at the bottom of this page.)

    I was pleased to add Strange Light to the Haunted Studio collection. Personally, I consider it one of my most effective and successful paintings. I hope it provides you with a shiver or two too, and continuing pleasure in contemplating, year 'round, the chilling pleasures of Halloween. 

    Strange Light has been meticulously scanned from my original watercolor and digitally printed with fade-resistant inks on specially treated heavyweight watercolor paper. I personally inspect your print, sign it, slip it into its protective clear plastic envelope, and include with it a page of helpful framing hints from The Haunted Studio. 

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