Missour State Pen Painting

From the Begining  HOW I DID MISSOURI STATE PEN

My trip to the Nick Groff Paranormal Tour of Missouri State Pen was amazing to say the least

My experience in the gas chamber led me to this work

It felt very HEAVY in there let me tell you.  I plopped myself down in one of the seats there and I really didn't want to but it was something I wanted to do, just when I got there I was being set upon by something.  I didn't see any ghosts or hear anything but by God I felt it there and when I tumbled out I had to sit on the bench that was outside and hold my head in my hands.  My husband James watched me the whole time and he asked me if I was breathing ok.  I do have breathing issues but I was fine, just oh my god what the hell WAS that you know.  NOW I know what Ghost Adventures was talking about when being overwhelmed by Spiritual Energy.  Even felt like crying when I was in there.  Felt the dread of the last moments of death, heavyness in the pit of my stomache and I have never felt like that before.  Felt pressed in.  After that we went back to Gen Population but went up a few floors when I said I had to get out.  My husband took me out and I sat on the steps outside just trying to shake it off.  One of the Groff Tour guides was there and we told him what was going on with me.  Eventually I shook it off.  Was able to finish the night but I did feel like leaving but hell no.  A Hall was cold as hell, serioulsy I was shaking and that place was cold in the afternoon, but the thing was the cold would shift, perhaps that's normal there but some others thought it might be a spirit on me, don't know.

Here is the series of WIP on the Front Entrance of MISSOURI STATE PEN

Here on Gesso board I started with drawing it down in charcoal, then I would paint the ground in Titanium White which helps in covering mistakes and drawing problems, once I start painting things come together better.  I did a 'cartoon' and outline drawing based on the design on the shirt I got from there.

I didn't copy the design just used the shape as the 'bones' for the drawing.

I started painting in the windows first,  when I started this I didn't have a set plan, this was a work that evolved on it's own, and I listened to Nick Groff's Spiritual War CD though the work, really helps to stay focused on this.

I wanted texture to the blocks of stone for this so when I did the titanium White I laid it on thick and let it dry. this is why I took so long doing this, that and the fact I have a family with four kids to take care of.

At one point I saw that the windows on the top were too dark, they were hard to see even with the red around it so I added Zinc White which is transparent when dried and that added to it's ghostly look.  When I paint these kinds of places I am going for the sense of the spiritual energy of the place.  I wanted to do red around the bricks cause this place is known as the Bloodiest 47 acres.

To experiement I added a bit of magenta to the lower square windows and blended with the zinc white and that added to it's spookiness.

Yeah almost done here, was very excited about that.  this piece is 24 by 36 (inches) and I was ready to get it done.

And there it is, done, I am planning A Hall on an 11 by 14 but I have other artworks I am working on in my sketchbooks and my brain.  I'm busy, LOL so I hope you like this.

I think it's awesome how on the outline of the place it has like this spooky glow.  The pictures are good but to see it in person is sooo much better.  This is done in 3 point perspective, quite a challenge for me.  Here is the original photos of the place.

Yeah I really had a artist vision with this place.  

Spooky Stories

Man, just got off netflix watching Animal Planet's Haunted, about animals reacting to haunted places.  A gal on Etsy is taking up people's haunted encounters on her blog.

I work at a library that is supposed to be haunted.  Last year our new director wanted to do an investigation because some strange things were going on, but it's only when there are few people around.

For starters this is in Independence Kansas, and there are a lot of haunted places in this town.  We have the William Inge home (he was a playwright) about a block and a half away from the library.  That place is really haunted but it seems to pick on some people while others are left alone.  It is a place where playwrights who come for the William Inge festival come to stay.  Some have seen the lady in the black dress, which is Inge's Mother, In the play The Dark at the top of the Stairs it strongly hints at something that went wrong in the family and people call it Inge's most autobiographical work.

The original building of the library was built by money from Andrew Carnagie, the man who was a steel magnant and wanted to build libraries.  We had a large new and more modern wing added and renovated sections of the old library.  Sections of this library are old and there is an old staircase that goes up to the third floor of the library that is the Children's section,  when it was renovated a wall was built up where it was a large opened doorway and two fire exits are up there but because of the changes no one goes up there.  I used to go up those stairs to put books up and hated it, the stairs are super creaky but something about those stairs gave me the willies.

We acquired a library cat one winter, she was wedged through the front doors somehow and was found in the entryway one morning.  I don't know, maybe someone read the book Dewey the library cat and got the idea of shoving her in.

This cat had reacted a couple of times to something that wasn't there, and it was when the library director was alone in the library.  She has also seen a man in a white suit walk towards the back steps on the second floor and we were just closed, she told someone a man was coming down those stairs, but he was never seen.
Once our library acquisitions officer thought she saw our director walking but realized she was NOT wearing the same outfit she just saw her in earlier.  This was on a Monday and we were closed but me her and the director were working there to catch up on inter library loans.

We did have the Joplin Paranormal Researchers come in one night and some of us (just us women workers actually) planned to stay up and watch horror movies at the directors house while we wait for the results,  we watched the Exorcist, the UNcut version.  She had more but that was the only thing we watched.

When we got the call it was pretty late, they told us it's the ghost of William Inge
NOW I was a bit skeptic on that.  Why is he here if it is him?  He committed suicide in his garage, running his car in CALIFORNIA.
We do have all his books and plays kept here.  He probably came to this library a lot, but the JPR people got a picture of an orb (the only one took after they asked permission to take a pic of him) at the hand railing at those back steps that go from the second floor to the ground floor. That was where the apperation was seen.  According to my husband, who has done work at the Inge festival in town,  Inge often wore a white suit.  He was also a man that didn't seek out people often.

This month they are giving a presentation about their research here about our library ghost.
The thing I want to know is did they do research about the area where the new library is built on, there was an old house there, I remember a NO SMOKING sign in the front door.  Usually means an older person on oxygen lives there.  It was torn down to make room for our big new addition.

The researches also said there was a residual haunted, probably of someone who used to work in the Children's section, again that would be something to read into.  This spirit did not talk to anybody or stop from walking according to the one gal that was following it.  It's basically a memory being played back over and over and not something to communicate with.

Our director is convinced it's a nice ghost because one day they lost this super tiny pin screw that goes into a glassed in message board in our entry way.  They tried looking for it every where in the entry way and just out of it within the library.  The next day the pin was right there in front of the doors in the library.  Our director found it.

There are a lot of spooky places in Independence, a local did a book on it and we have two copies at the library and it's called Ghosts of Southeast Kansas.

I used to work as a janitor for awhile and I didn't experience anything being there that early, though I still did not want to go up those old stairs.  When I went back to just being a page and started coming in on Monday when we were closed to work on library loans and put more books up that's when it felt more creepy.  I never saw anything though I swear I thought I heard something and it wasn't the cat and it wasn't the pidgeons that roost near the windows, it was like something was there but wasn't, those who are skeptics would say I was just spooked by my own imaginations, others who have experienced things know what I am talking about.  I drove by the Inge house and realized it wasn't that far of a walk from the library to there so I thought Inge might have come here a bit.

I love to watch shows about people who end up buying a home and it's haunted, I noticed some trends in these stories

1.  It's a great deal, great price,  find out WHY before buying if it has a history of a murder, hauntings, it was a freakin MORGUE please just PASS!

2. Owners want to sell right away at any price  again same thing as above, ask WHY if they decline or seem nervous just pass, it could be that the foundation is rotted but even if you are a professional house flipper you can't fix a haunted house.

3  If you have a young child 'chatting' to someone in the corner and you don't see anything and you have a child that does NOT normally do this, time to check the next house.

4  You might want to pass on anything that has weird stains that will NOT go away

5  If you happen to have an animal with you and they refuse to go in, listen to it, or if they do go in then start chasing something not there, get out.

6  if you happen to be blessed with that sensitivity that something is wrong or 'heavy' about the place, trust it, ditto with children or teens that sense something wrong.

7 oh yeah if you hear a rumor the place's basement was used for satanic rites, don't laugh it off, stay away from the place.

Soooo anyone with spooky encounters they have had or had someone else tell them?  Share them here.