Sunsets and Silhouettes

In this season when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, the mundane is transformed into the macabre

A vague memory. The images untethered in my mind, just an impression of a room. The kitchen, I think. Scissors and brushes, an offcut of wallpaper laid out on the table, weighed down at the corners to stop it from curling back on itself. A sunset sky painted in a vibrant gradient of reds, yellows, and oranges, cut-out silhouettes of witches on broomsticks, bats, cauldrons, and black cats perched on rooftops.

But the feeling of wonder and delight at the marvellous and mysterious creation unfolding before my four-year-old eyes, is crystal clear. In the swirl of colour and shadow I glimpsed the magic of Halloween for the first time, peering through a doorway to enchantment and magic at the edge of the twilight. That thrill of seeing imagination come to life, of creating a world where witches flew and black cats prowled, is a feeling that has stayed with me ever since. Each Halloween echoes with that same wonder, the delight of stepping into a place made real with just a few brush strokes and black paper.

As autumn arrives, the world around us begins its own spellbinding transformation. The chill in the air lifts the hairs on my arms, and the leaves murmur with secret incantations carried in the wind. They blaze in shades of crimson, amber, and gold, a fire spreading through the treetops, casting an enchantment over the landscape. As the days grow shorter, night creeps in on velvet paws, wrapping the world in shadows and bringing with it the hush of whispered spells and the flicker of candlelight.

I’ve always been drawn to this dance between the ordinary and the extraordinary, and at this time of year, as All Hallows’ Eve approaches, reality loosens its grip and the threads of fantasy weave themselves into the fabric of the world. What is real and what is imagined blur, we cast our spells of creative magic with needle and thread, facepaints and brushes, glitter and glue.

Year after year, in this season when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, the mundane is transformed into the macabre.

Old clothes, once forgotten in the back of a wardrobe, are shredded and torn, red ink dripping like fresh blood as they morph into tattered zombie rags, held together with safety pins. With nothing more than face paints and brushes, I summon forth a giant Black Widow that crouches menacingly on my arm, fangs hovering close to bare skin. Living faces are remade into skeletal masks, sunken eyes that seem to bleed, and cheekbones slashed open by the claws of a lurking werewolf.

Pumpkins from the allotment are sliced open to reveal the tangled web of seeds and pulp hidden within. Each deliberate cut shapes a new character with its own mischievous grin or sinister stare. As daylight fades to dusk, their faces flair to life, grinning, they stand sentinel at the doorstep, flickering candlelight glowing from within. They whisper to passersby, drawing them into the mysteries of Halloween, guardians of the threshold between the ordinary and the enchanted.

A plastic glove stuffed with kitchen roll and wrapped in plaster gauze becomes a dismembered hand dripping blood, grasping at a wreath of blackened flowers, covered in cobwebs and dust. A spider, skitters behind a white skull with blank eye sockets and blackened teeth.

Bottles stuffed with toad bladders and shrunken brains created from conkers, a glue gun, and paint, join a collection of potion ingredients. Werewolf fangs, sculpted from air-dry clay, sit beside human eyeballs crafted from ping-pong balls, floating eerily in old jam jars.

Discarded demijohns recovered from the loft are reborn into haunting lanterns. Black paint conjures tombstones, crooked trees, and phantom scarecrows that creep across glass, each scene lit with disembodied light from within. In the window, tiny, grinning ghosts made from string lights, ping-pong balls, an old white muslin cloth, and a black marker drift eerily, as if conjured by the winds of the otherworld.

A once-ordinary Oxford dictionary, weathered by cold tea bags and transformed into a potion book, reveals dark secrets on every page, the edges worn and inked with tales of poison apples and forbidden spells. Each creation breathes with the magic of the season, summoned from imagination and awakened by creativity.

Words, wickedly woven, become part of the enchantment too. A haunting invitation from

Lydia Saward

with illustrations from me. Join us!

Bye for now,