#15: Let's make a 3D paper monster

3D effects, monsters, and mixed media madness

I know it’s only September, but it’s officially spooky season in my heart. The Practical Magic score has been looping in my head, I had a nightmare last week that I forgot to make my Halloween costume, and the weather is just cool enough where I’m drinking hot cocoa at night. In short: heaven has arrived on earth, y’all.

Spooky season means spooky things - and I have always loved monsters. One of my favorite things to do in Tallahassee growing up was stare into a far patch of oaks or pines at night, relax my eyes, and wait til my mind rustled some shapes out of the darkness. Trees became slouching giants crawling out of the woods, and even though they were monsters, I always thought of them as friends. Which was nice, because they were my imagination, and damn straight your imagination should always be your best friend.

In two weeks, we’ll be putting those imaginations to the test with postcard-sized fiction, so you know the drill: full-access subscribers, scroll to the bottom and vote! As always, you’re choosing one action and one word that I’ll infuse into a short story small enough for a postcard. Let’s pick a prompt that is so weird, y’all can’t help but write a story, too <3

Today’s mailable artwork? Layered 3D paper monsters

As a love letter to the spooky season and those imaginary monsters of yore, I wanted to make something creepy. Unfortunately, my obsession with my balcony (can you blame me with views like this?) has kept me returning to cozy images. I could’ve fought it, but instead I went ahead and married the two, giving y’all a cozy morning coffee cut short by a giant monster crawling over the buildings:

Y’all. This project was fun. SO FUN. It’s eight different layers of paper with three different mediums. Each layer really jumps out at you in person. They are rich and strange. And you’re about to make your own.

Before this cuts to paid-only access…did you know you can vote for the prompt AND peek the template with a one-week trial over on Patreon? You can access the same templates, voting, and handmade art as my Substack, but with only one monthly email (so you won’t go bananas subscribed to both) and options for quarterly or monthly original artwork mailed to ya direct from France.