Delightfully Dark Finds: Calaveras Card Deck

Calaveras Playing Cards by Chris Ovdiyenko

There are many crowdfunding campaigns vying for attention at the moment but these Kickstarter project playing cards, inspired by the Mexican Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival, recently caught my eye. The beautiful illustrations on these cards are by artist, Chris Ovdiyenko, and were inspired by the work of the famous Mexican printmaker, José Posada.

La Calavera Catrina by José Guadalupe Posada

José Guadalupe Posada (February 2, 1852 – January 20, 1913) was a Mexican cartoonist, illustrator, printmaker and political satirist. He is probably best know for his "calaveras" or skull artworks, in particular the Calavera de la Catrina, which satirized the Mexican upper classes during the reign of dictator, Porfirio Díaz. Posada's work has since become associated with the Día de los Muertos holiday.

You can see more of Chris Ovdiyenko's artwork, and find out how to obtain your own deck of Calaveras playing cards, here.

Dumb Ways to Die

Dumb Ways to Die is a web film made as part of a public service campaign by Metro Trains in Melbourne (where I live), Australia, to promote railway safety. The song went viral back in November 2012, but in case you haven't seen it, I wanted to share it here.

I can't resist the creepy-cute factor and the catchy song is completely stuck in my head.

Delightfully Dark Art: Abigail Larson

Amarantha and Archibald End from Amarantha's Red Ribbon by Abigail Larson

I first stumbled across the work of illustrator, Abigail Larson, on Pinterest, and it was love at first sight! Not only is she extraordinarily talented artistically, but much of her work is charmingly macabre in theme.

Edgar Allan Poe and The Grave of Lenore by Abigail Larson

My particular favourites are her many Edgar Allan Poe inspired works, including portraits of Poe himself, and her illustrations for an in-progress graphic novel called Amarantha's Red Ribbon.

You can see lots more of Abigail Larson's beautiful artwork on her website, at deviantART and in her online shop.

And the winner is...

linnea-maria!

Thank you to everyone who attended the Little Gothic Horrors blog birthday party at the Addams Family mansion. It was wonderful to see you all, and oh my, what darkly delightful gifts you brought for Morticia! I assigned a number to each comment in the order that they were left and the winner was chosen by the RANDOM.ORG True Random Number Generator.

The winning number was 3: linnea-maria! The witch postcards and the poison labels will soon be winging their way to you, linnea-maria!