There I was, shopping at St Vinnie's, when I saw a somewhat scuffed and battered aquarium nightlight* in the toy department. I knew instantly that I wanted to throw those fish right out and paint a tableau of my own to set into motion. What you see here is the result of that impulse.
There were two moving plastic scrolls in the nightlight, on which the bright and cheerful aquarium scenery was printed. I replaced the inner scroll with an acrylic painting on opaque plastic film. The outer scroll I replaced with clear acetate, on which I drew with Sharpies of various colors. (Note for next time: use oil-based Sharpies! That's what the white is on the clear scroll; it's very opaque and very durable.)
The original nightlight's internal bulb was burnt out, and I didn't want to replace it, because back-lit hand-painted work rarely looks good. However, I just happened to have a tiny IKEA light that was pretty useless as a lamp because it casts such a tiny, bluish glare. But once I cannibalized it and integrated it into my assemblage it made a perfect spotlight for skeletons dancing on the astral plane across a backdrop of a funeral procession.
Unfortunately the finished objet is very difficult to photograph, because of the highly reflective clear plastic housing that holds the thing together. Here are a few stills, some with the spotlight off, which makes it easier to see the images on the scrolls:
*Since posting this, the full-sized aquarium nightlight seems to have disappeared from the Amazon catalog. But just to give you an idea, it looked a lot like this one, but bigger. Or like this one, but fish.
