Tripping over stones...

The grapping branches of the dark trees release their fettering hold as wood gives way to a clearing in your flight. Thinking only of escape, notice is not given to the fixed stones at your feet, until the solid shock of impact is felt, and the ground rushes up to meet you.

Gasping for breath, you climb to your knees to examine the object that brought your exodus from this night to a halt. The rough feel of cut stone greets your hands as you search through the air. A light is risked to examine the object, and names and dates, rudely cut into the stone appear, indicating a gravestone.

Casting about with your dimming light, more and more cut stones reveal themselves all about. But the residents are not quiet in their repose. Indignant on this night from the intrustion of the living, they surrender their rest and begin to push their way up to pushing this interloper...

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Years ago, before the kids, my wife and I bought a house in Dearborn, MI.

We started to work on rennovating it in the summer and by the end of October, had finished enough to want to show it off to our friends. The vehicle of this was going to be a Halloween party. I decided to make gravestones with mine and Mary's names on them, along with some of our friends. That was the initial beginning of my Halloween artistry.

The first few where made from surplus foamboard, left over from work on the house, and most of them are still in use to this day (although they are getting a bit ratty).

This year I decided to attempt a more realistic version of my old gravestones, starting with my "Elvis". This idea was directly ripped off from one I saw on the Simpson's "Treehouse of Terror" Halloween special from back in the day.

I used 2" foamboard, recovered from a bunch of pieces that were found on the side of the road (being the cheap bastard that I am...) I had given some to a neighbor, and they gave it back to me last year for a different project. I worked out the new design on the computer, using CorelDRAW so that it will be 18" tall when finished. Using straight pins, I fastened the paper pattern to the foam and used an XActo knife to punch through the template into the foam, tracing the outline of the gravestone itself and the words. I thought a weathered looking font would be cool, but it just made it tricky to trace. The plus side of that is my screwups are less obvious. I then cut along on the outside of the text with the knife and used a flat blade screwdriver to pop out the chunks of foam. Doing the same thing with lines about a quarter inch in width, I removed the foam from the recessed areas to the edging of the piece. This left a rather rough, gouged out look in the recessed areas, so I used sandpaper, a woodburner and lighter (to melt back the foam) to smooth it out side. The result was still rough, but not as much...

Using a hot wire cutter, I cut out the final shape. Sandpaper was used to round the corners. My shopvac was much appreciated for cleanup and my big fan in the garage was used to keep the fine grit of the foam, along with the fumes from the melting from contaminating my lungs anymore than they already are...

You have to coat foam with something if you want to use any form of spray paint to color it. I used the "Dinner Mint" last seen on my ghostly friends, as you can see here...
The propellant in spray paint is a solvant for the foam. My kids did not believe me so I did a demonstration with some black paint I bought earlier this summer. And to prove me a liar, that version of the propellant did NOT dissolve the foam!! Other paint I had, however, did prove an effective demonstration. I know what paint I'm using on foam from now on...