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Scary stories – my greatest inspiration

Inspiration box

It is the name of the category where I am going to put my biggest inspirations which make me want to draw and paint all day long!T Today I am reaching almost the very bottom of that box because I travel to my childhood and to all that scary stories which made my child’s imagination grow!

Scary stories – the endless source of inspiration

Also today, nothing brings my imaginations so alive than scary stories. The more I am scared, the more I am curious about what will happen next! In the meanwhile, I make up thousands of possible endings.
I am not thinking about all that creepy movies or affairs with a ton of blood and fragmented bodies. I don’t have in mind all heartbreaking events which really happened either.
My inspirations stories are more like dark fairytales, mysterious occurrences, intriguing superstitions and cruel legends…All of them have the strong emotional charge which gives a ton of inspirations.

It is no wonder since fear is one of the strongest emotion man can feel. And the best kind of fear is this unreal when I can feel emotion but on the back of my head I know, I can put it with a book back on the shelf

When I was a child…

I always loved any kind of fairytales. I could listen to them over and over and I was really lucky because my grandmother knew plenty of them. No nonsenses about sweet princesses and unicorns, ut hard fairy life, where for the stupid mistakes you often have to pay the biggest price.

I listened to stories with an open mouth about:
– the vampire princess, which woke up from her coffin in old every night and consumed every man who she could find there. So every night the stack of bones was higher…
– about a stupid girl who was let the devil invite her to dance. He was dancing with her so fast that finally her head was dropped out…
– the Bluebread and his chamber with heads of too curious wifes…
– Utopiec (kind of Slavic water spirit, often the soul of drowned man) who drown careless girls in a lake or river and they became his brides
– the Ugly Johanna who wants be so beautiful so badly that she accepted the gift from lake witch – red beads which let her be beautiful, but the price of it was to being a servant of the witch and spending rest of her life at Beldany lake
– all Grimm’s characters in the original version of the stories which are far from what Disney showed us…

I remember I liked Andersen’s fairytales very much although they were often so sad and his heroines ended badly for example frozen to death or changing into sea foam…( That was the first time I have met Little Ariel and, although I like Ariel’s character design a lot I can’t forgive Disney how he changed the story).

Fear is good vs fear is bad

I am not sure what are the newest opinions of psychological when it comes to reading scary stories to children. I have heard opposing opinions:

– we should! Because scary stories show that world isn’t a colorful and tasty piece of cake and if you aren’t careful enough this ‘cake’ can eat you! Fear is necessary to learn our children that bad things can happen and there are some limitations we should known
– we shouldn’t! What is the point of scaring tchildren? They will have time to learn that life isn’t always good fairytale in the future. They should have happy childhood without stress and know that they are safe and parents are always around

Which stand is correct? How creepy stories influence little kids? I don’t know. One thing I know for sure – they can expand the imagination very well.

Playing Fear Game

Even now I get to bed very quickly to not give a chance of grabbing my leg if, eventually, some terrifying creature wish to catch me in unknown purpose… Or I don’t like to state in the mirror at night, to not be able to see something which doesn’t exist…
These are just examples of silly games which I play with my own mind. It makes simple life more exciting and unusual. Everything is fine, even if fear is real, I know there is no danger and my imagination works like a crazy producing many inspiring ideas to painting and drawing.

THAT IS HOW I MAKE FEAR WORKS FOR ME!

That is the reason why you can find so many creepy characters in my illustrations:
– ghosts
– vampires
– lost souls
– disquieting freaks
– a crowd of magical creatures with not very friendly intentions
– little girls, who see what nobody can see

All these oddities bother me so often especially at the end of Autumn season, when it is getting dark so quickly and the wind is howling like a purgatory soul. In Poland, we have such a phrase “it is blowing, as somebody hung itself “… It makes imagination working at once, right? 😉

That is why scary stories are my stories are my nr 1 on my inspirations list. That is also the reason such themes are very often topics of my Inktober illustrations (you can take a look at my Haunted House).

Do you like to be scared?

Do you like such a creepy tales or maybe you cover your ears when you only hear the “horror” word?
Are there some scary stories which made an impact on you? If so – where it with me, I am all ears!