Spooky Eyes!!

Though it’s no longer the Halloween season, I had an idea for a pillow that I still wanted to do. I started it before the 31st, but our Internet connection was kaput that final day so I didn’t push to finish it. I figured why be hampered by the stringent rule of November marking the end of the Halloween celebration, so I’m posting my ninth pillow regardless. Convention be damned!!

One of my all-time favorite shows when I was younger was Scooby Doo. I realize others think it’s goofy and silly and kind of lame, but I’m an animal person who has been around dogs my entire life. How could I not absolutely fall in love with that huge Great Dane who not only communicates with his family but also solves mysteries in spite of being a coward!? (Besides, he always comes through for them because he’s Scooby Dooby Doo!!) It was a fun show for me with great music, a spooky atmosphere and some pretty creepy villains. Watching the episodes now as an adult, I still adore it and cannot help smiling and feeling wonderful as I sit back and watch Scooby and the Gang solve yet another mystery.

One of the things that automatically comes to mind when I think of the show, besides the characters and the music, are those eyes in the theme songs on a couple of the incarnations. You know, the disembodied ones that are all larger than life and slanted with menace? For me they are an indelible symbol of that show, so I wanted to sew a homage to something that I dearly cherished.

I took the different shows we have off our shelf and watched the theme song on each one, looking for those eyes. I found one in particular that I liked the most and sat in front of the television to sketch it, wanting to make it the best representation I could. I created something I was happy with, so then moved to the bigger sketchbook to redo it on a larger scale. (Side note here – I don’t know if other artists [not that I consider myself an artist, mind you!] have this problem but I end up having such a hard time with making my sketches bigger. I’ll draw it in my small sketch book and think it looks great. Then when I create it again only magnified, I have such a difficult time drawing it to match. It never seems to be as good!)

Anyway, once I was happy with my results I started deciding what colors I wanted to do. I knew I had to have two colors for the eyes with the pupils and the background black. Why? Because I thought it would look neat!! Shawn and I went back and forth a bit on what we thought might make a nice combination when he suggested that I do eyes on both sides of the pillow. That way, like with the pumpkin pillow, I could make the most use out of the project by doing two different color combos! So, that’s what I did. I thought yellow and red would make a nice duo, and Shawn recommended purple and green. I didn’t have enough felt for the purple/green one so I made a quick trip to JoAnn’s one day, and ended up buying a bunch of new colors besides the ones I needed. Ah, the siren call of colors!!

Once again, the end product doesn’t look as spectacular as the cut fabric does when it’s lying flat on the table. I think I need to train my eye and my mind to accept the inherent differences between 2-D and 3-D. Regardless, my spooky eyes pillow is a pretty decent rendition of an aspect of one of my favorite memories from childhood. It was also a lot of fun to make considering while I was sewing I got to see those eyes staring back at me! I think the whole thing may need to be a bigger size, however, and I definitely need more black around the eyes so they look like they’re coming out of darkness. I messed up on that part of it, unfortunately! But, hopefully they evoke enough of that Scooby Doo feel to do him proud.