Last year my son was finally old enough (four, to be exact)
to really started enjoying Halloween almost as much as I do. As part of our
spooky autumn festivities, I took him to a bunch of farms and orchards. Among
all the corn mazes, pumpkin patches and hay rides, by far his favorite things
were the scarecrows.
Since then he’s pretty much been on a non-stop scarecrow
kick. Sure it fades from time to time as his obsession turns towards mummies,
skeletons or pirates (naturally). But scarecrows are always there in the
background.
A few months ago I started doodling scarecrows for him
during slow periods at my job. As I drew, I made up little stories for each
scarecrow, building up a pretty detailed lore. Eventually I decided to develop a book. Two
books actually. One will be a picture book for my son at his current age (also
for my daughter who is herself a voracious book lover even at only one and a
half years). The other will be a sort of “field guide” in the vein of Brian
Froud’s Goblin and Fairy books, made for when my kids both get a little older.
I thought I’d share some of my scarecrow drawings with you
guys, along with the background stories I created for them. I’ll be posting the
original doodles, usually made on notebook paper or the backs of my daily
schedules, along with more refined redraws.
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| The original sketch |
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| The redraw |
HASPENALD
As a consequence of their habit of standing in one place in
the field all day, many scarecrows develop an almost obsessive interest in studying
a particular thing in their local environment. Some will learn the calls of
every bird, insect and animal that wanders through near. Some will catalog the size, shape and color of
every single rock in their field down to
the smallest pebble. Some will identify and name every single spider they can
find. And so on.
Haspenald’s obsession is the night sky. As the sun goes
down, one can always find him in the middle of his cornfield gazing up at the
stars. He has memorized the placement and movement of hundreds of them. He knows the
seasons of meteor showers and can even recognize the difference between planets
and stars. Though he has never read a book on astronomy- and indeed, cannot
read at all- he has learned a great deal about the nature of stars and planets
from the Traveler Crows that visit his field. More on them later.
