Nosferatu ATC - by Alison

Hello again!  After my massive spooktacular He's Behind You on Saturday, I'm back today with a much shorter post but - in my opinion - a more genuinely spine-tingling creation.  The Spooky Shrine had a sort of Scooby Doo pantomime scare-factor.  Today's ATC taps in to genuine creepiness, leaning heavily on the amazing 1922 film, Nosferatu - the original vampire thriller... perhaps all the more eerie for being a silent black and white film.

Max Schreck plays Count Orlof, and the lighting, the ambience, the sheer creepiness of Schreck as the vampire has stayed with me ever since I was lucky enough to see it on a large screen at the NFT in my twenties.  There are images and scenes which have haunted my imagination ever since, and Calico Craft Parts have designed a piece which captures exactly one of those images.

How he looms over you there from the deck of the ship... with those claws of hands ready to reach for you...  Meet the Nosferatu Wood Vampire Shape.

I didn't feel I needed to do much - just a crackle background - DecoArt Crackle Paste on one of the plain ATC Blanks (though there are some Halloween ATC specials worth checking out too), the moon masked off while I added Prussian Blue Hue and Paynes Grey...

I just used a circular punch and some self-adhesive paper, and then peeled it away when I was done, leaving a ghostly penumbra which glows palely around the figure of Count Orlof once he's stuck in place.

Nosferatu himself has also been very simply tinted with Paynes Grey and Prussian Blue Hue for extra shading.

If you're still not quite in the Halloween mood, do check out the rest of the amazing spooky designs in the Calico Craft Parts Halloween section - from owls perched on branches, to Haunted Houses, to the skeletons and zombies you met in my Spooky Shrine, to fabulous Gothic words to put on pages and layouts.  I promise there's something for everyone.

That's pretty much it for today.  (See, I can do short posts.)  Sleep well won't you!

Alison xx
Words and Pictures