Lewis Barrett Lehrman Artwork

[Shan]

With Halloween only about a week away, I think it is time to start dressing up Chaos for Halloween with some Halloween artwork. ;D

Lewis Barrett Lehrman




I'm Lewis Barrett Lehrman, veteran graphic artist and illustrator, professional watercolorist, teacher of watercolor and artistic journaling at the Scottsdale (AZ) Artists' School and elsewhere, and author of six books on art for artists. For three years, I served as founding American Editor for International Artist Magazine and helped to launch the publication. These days, however, you'll find me in my studio most of the time, working on new subjects for The Haunted Studio.

My career as a fine artist began back in 1984, following over twenty-five years in graphic design and illustration, and I've been painting and writing pretty much full time ever since. The Haunted Studio has been my baby for the last five years or so, and I've built its spooky collection from just a few paintings and prints, to its present -- and still growing -- gallery of subjects. Will I ever run out of ideas? Never! I've got so many backed up in my head and CLAMORING to get out, I'll never get to do them all!

How did I become interested in painting the haunted world? I trace it back to the summer of 1944, the year I turned eleven! That was when my aunt and uncle invited me to spend a month with them on a mid-western farm. I was a New York city kid, a budding artist even then, and to say I was excited at making the trip -- by myself!! -- on an overnight Pullman sleeper train to Battle Creek, Michigan, would be understating my feelings by quite a bit. Sleepless with excitement, I spent that night, nose pressed to the window, gazing out at moonlit farmlands, lonely houses lit by solitary lights, as we rolled past in the darkness. They're images I remember to this day, so it was only natural that I'd be drawn to painting the night. From painting the night it was a short hop to Halloween.

Through the mid '80's and into the early '90's, my wife and I owned an art gallery which featured my work as well as that of other artists. Night scenes -- and then Halloween scenes -- were always popular subjects. The more I painted them, the more they sold. And people loved them! Today, many of them live on mainly in memory, as they have long since left my world.

Those were the years before the Internet, high quality scanning and digital giclée (high quality ink-jet) printing, and all the technology which we take for granted today, all of which have now made it possible to produce incredibly faithful reproductions in small quantities, and which also helped make The Haunted Studio possible.

These days, The Haunted Studio and its activities occupy a great deal of my creative time. I have come to think of myself as "Painter of Dark."

Thanks to the wonders of digital printing, I control every step of the reproduction of my paintings, from scanning through retouching, adjusting, tweaking, and watching each and every sheet as it inches from the giclée printer. With the exception of my new Premiere Edition series, I do everything in house, guaranteeing that each print is completely faithful to my painting. The results I'm able to achieve with today's state-of-the-art equipment, combined with finicky perfectionism, are simply amazing!

If you are interested in visiting Lewis Barrett Lehrman' website, click on the link below.

Haunted Studio

[Shan]

There's Always A Vacancy at Hauntley House




They've been traveling this deserted road since he took a wrong turn some thirty miles back. It's very late, they're exhausted, undeniably lost, and getting just a bit cranky. Suddenly there are lights ahead. An inn! And look: There's a vacancy!

"I don't like the looks of this place," she says as he begins unloading their bags, "and neither does Barnaby!"

He's annoyed now: "Would you rather sleep in the car?" There's a long silence.

What will they decide? How will Barnaby handle this? Why is the inn illuminated with such a strange light? And are they being watched?

Aaaah, maybe it's just our imagination. (Maybe it isn't!) And what about the adjoining cemetery?

I'll leave the rest of the story to you.

[Shan]

The Haunting of Blue House




Last night, an evening hiker, setting out for a walk along State Road, heard an odd noise that seemed to come from the old dilapidated Victorian mansion (which everyone in town refers to as "The Blue House"). He looked back to see a wavering light in the tower window. He gazed, mouth agape, a shiver of apprehension fluttering in his chest, an icy sensation lifting the hairs on his neck. Then, accelerating his pace, he quickly returned home via a different route.

The Blue House, in its day, was just about the grandest mansion in town, with its high ceilings, dark oak-paneled chambers, and its commanding view of the valley. Built around 1897 by the local lumber baron, the house had been handed down and passed through several owners since then.

But Blue House has stood empty, as old timers frequently recall, since that October night in 1937, when someone broke in, apparently bent on robbery. Neighbors heard shots and screams. The police were summoned, but by the time they arrived, the house again stood silent: blood-spattered, ransacked, and empty! Its occupants -- an entire family of six -- had vanished as if into thin air. No trace of any of them was ever found.

Naturally, no one wanted to move into the place, so it stood empty for the longest time. Furniture was stolen, kids threw stones through windows, a mysterious fire destroyed the old barn out back, and time and weather continued to wear away at the once-grand mansion.

What people remember most clearly, however, was Halloween night, 1953, when a group of partying highschoolers dared that new kid to stay all night -- alone -- within the walls of Blue House. The poor kid didn't want to, but they persisted and he finally gave in. The following morning his tormentors looked on wide-eyed as he emerged unsteadily from the house. His hair had turned completely white and he stared out with strange, distant gaze! No one ever got him to speak a word of his experience, and the family soon moved out of state.

As far as I know, he was the last living person to venture past the gaping doorway to Blue House!

Since then, parents warn their children, "You be sure to stay clear of Blue House!" Or they might whisper, between bridge hands at the club or over drinks at the Inn, "I was driving down State Road last night and those sounds are coming again from Blue House." Or, "Did you hear what happened to so-and-so when she went up to Blue House?"

And today the hiker is telling everyone who will listen about that light!

The Haunting Of Blue House was created using my favorite Chinese painting technique, which you'll notice at play in many of my recent paintings. The way in which I selectively wrinkle the special watercolor paper I use, before the paint is applied, accounts for the impressionistic textures of foreground and distant forest.

[Shan]

Phantoms




Why am I so fascinated by old graveyards? Is it because they evoke the souls that lived before us, whose earthly remains quietly moulder beneath? And what of their spiritual beings? Do we feel their presence around us in these earthly surroundings?

It is the artist's privilege to imagine the unimaginable, to visualize the unseen, to give form to our hopes, our beliefs, and sometimes our fears.

Pamela C. submitted the perfect title for this painting as her entry to my "Name That Painting" contest. Sadly, though fittingly, Phantoms (as related by Pamela), is the title of a poem written some years ago by Neil Munn, a young man who died in an auto accident at the age of 16. Neil's short poem, which accompanied her entry, seemed, to the "Ghoul Board," an uncanny complement to this painting -- almost as if my image had been painted for it. And Phantoms, virtually the only one-word title I received out of several hundred entries, was equally to the point.

The poem itself follows:
Phantoms
By Neil Munn

The shadows of crumbling tombstones lie
Upon the moonlit ground,
The dampened air is fully filled,
With shapes of the unsound,
Around the bending leaf-lost trees,
The shadows that they give,
Dance mournfully without a sound,
The risen dead, that live.

This painting is now dedicated to the memory of Neil Munn.

The phantoms in this scene arrived as I painted it, and crowded in by the dozen until the painting was filled to overflowing. You can certainly see some of them in the image above. Many more await your discovery.

And what shall we make of that solitary pot of brightly colored flowers?

This painting employs the somewhat impressionistic technique I use frequently, particularly for my popular subjects, The Homecoming, and Ghost House.

[Shan]

The Welcoming Committee




This is the perfect complement to "Thirteen Spooks, Maybe More." The painting was originally created for the "planchette" of the Thirteen Spooks Spirit (Ouija) board, my joint venture with the brothers Johnson. It had been painted to match the inverted heart shape of the planchette.

We're a little further from the house in this painting, where three rather lit-up Jack-O'-Lanterns cynically evaluate the costumes and makeup of trick-or-treaters passing by. In the distance, some other manifestations of the night are evident.

[Shan]

House on Haunted Hill




A ramshackle old clapboard Victorian sags in the moonlight, shutters askew, gazing down on us from atop its unkempt hill. What's with that crypt half buried at center left? And what's going on in the attic? The neighborhood children stay away from the old house, especially at night when the wind creaks through the bones of the ancient oak tree and moans around the yawning crypt. And yet, there seems to be someone... something?... in residence at The House On Haunted Hill.

This print was made from a relatively small painting, and has been reproduced at about the size of the original. For that reason, it is available only in Medium Format size.

[Shan]

Abandoned No More




It's a chill October evening, out there at the edge of town. As he walks "Killer" towards the usual late-evening turnaround point of the dog's nightly explorations, his thoughts turn to the old Gravely mansion. Once the grandest house in town, today it's an eyesore, long deserted, derelict in the extreme, and slowly falling to ruin. Condemned by the town, it is slated to be demolished... one of these days.

Enveloped in memories, he's scarcely aware of the great Victorian pile as it looms beside him in the moonlight.

It's a shame, he thinks, how the grand old house has stood empty... ever since....

Suddenly, he's frozen in his tracks by a very odd sound, emanating from the depths of the mansion ...how would he later describe it?

A shiver, unrelated to the evening's chill, flashes up his spine.

He turns... now seeing lights in the house where no lights ought to be!

[janggut]

Lehrman's style is very straightforward, not much into surreal except for imaginary characters like that of the flying witch in The Welcoming Committee. his colours are also very different - not the typical dark colours used by artists featured in this section.

as for Abandoned No More, if it's drawn with wintery season in mind, this can easily be turned to a christmassy drawing.