This storyboard was intended as a music video for a series I have been working on called The Adventures of Karlie. In the story, a small child named Karlie falls into a mine shaft and encounters a group of evil creatures. As she explores the underground tunnels, Karlie is warned by several dancing fireballs that she should run away, but Karlie doesn’t listen and is overtaken by the Rock and Roll Demon.

The Rock and Roll Demon is short and meatballish in stature, but quickly becomes terrifying as he and the dancing flames belt out his theme song. Here is the rough edit story board. The music here is played by Justin Bell and my brother Travis Haskins. 

We also preformed the song live at Tracy Park with the help of Jason Whisman, Zach Craft,and both of my brothers John and Travis Haskins.

The Ballad of the Rock and Roll Demon
He is the Rock and Roll Demon

And he is coming for your soul

He has a hunger in his belly and he is going to eat you whole.

I wanna see you cry for your mother

Scream blue murder

Make you tremble and shudder

Take your fears turn to tears

Take your dreams turn to screams

I’m so scary got my pitch for ready and I’ll eat your soul just like spaghetti

Let me recpicate I hate love I love hate

He is the Rock and Roll Demon

And he is coming for your soul
See how he acts when out of the cracks he comes flying at you like a blood sucking bat

Like the living dead I’ll make a snack of your head

He is the Rock and Roll Demon

And he is coming for your soul
I know you are going to quiver and I know you are going to quake

I know your going to shiver and I know you are going to shake

When I use you as bait down at snake pit lake

He is the Rock and Roll Demon

And he is coming for your soul

This past month I picked up my entry from the Southern Ohio Museum’s biannual Cream of the Crop exhibit.

My entry titled Caution And Calamity started life as a print of Edawrd Munch’s 1901 painting called Girls on a Bridge.

I have always admired Munch’s work and, for this painting, I used some of his lines to inspire my own creation. Here is a video of the painting’s early developments. In it, you can see my creative process at work as I paint on top of the print and transform the girls on the bridge into a vulture. 

Fall semester is starting soon at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth. I recently spent an afternoon on campus and created this painting of Shawnee’s illustrious Massie Hall. The painting was made using Impression techniques, and because I love the work of Vincent Van Gogh I took advantage of a sunny day to try his Plein Aire approach. Painting outside in this fashion was a refreshing change compared to working in the studio. I feel like the painting was better able to capture the light and the breeze because I was able to see and feel them for myself.

The original painting is now available for purchase for $175.00 and I am also selling limited edition 11″ x 14″ prints for $25.00. For those interested in purchasing this work, you may contact me at charles.e.haskins@gmail.com.

Over the past few months, I have been working on several paintings of Portsmouth’s beautiful Camp Oyo. Located on the West Side near the Shawnee State Forest, Camp Oyo is a wonderful summer camp that has several cabins, a dining hall (which has been featured in several arichtual magazines), a tennis court, a swimming pool, and an area for worship.
I was commissioned by the camp to create a series of postcards to help celebrate their upcoming anniversary. To get a better idea of what the camp was like, I asked to have a tour. The welcoming staff walked me through the entire grounds and told me about the camp’s history. They even told me about the camp’s legendary Big Foot sightings and also shared several camp ghost stories! 

I was told about a mysterious appearance of a blue light that was often seen traveling through camp. Many believe the light signals the presence of a ghost. Some have claimed that on certain nights the light can be seen floating throughout the camp and that it seems to peer through cabin windows. Some even believe it to be the ghost of a Native American chief who once lived there.

 I also learned about the tale of Old Man Grouch. The guide explained that at one time near the borders of Camp Oyo there lived an elderly man who did not like children. Campers sometimes would annoy him by exploring a little too close to his property and the old man would shout and throw rocks at them to drive them away. The old man eventually became known as Old Man Grouch. Even after Old Man Grouch’s death, campers still report strange noises that seem to come from Old Man Grouch. To appease Old Man Grouch’s spirit and to ensure a good summer, campers made it a ritual to place a stone on Old Man Grouch’s property. Today the pile of stones is enormous!


In creating these pictures, I wanted to capture all of the wonderful scenery but also wanted to retell all of the lore and history that is also apart of the camp’s charm. I made sure to include Big Foot tracks, a ghostly blue reflection of the Native American Chief on a cabin window, and a large pile of stones marked with a “G” to represent the tale of Old Man Grouch. I also included the camp’s pet dog named Angel Biscuit.

These post cards and prints are now available for purchase at the camp’s store.

It’s that time again! August 6th marks 2016’s last installment of Boneyfiddle’s Street Art Saturday.

The festivities start at noon on 2nd Street with music by Andy Russell and the folk trio The Grave Robbers. 

In preparation for their performance, I dug up this video of  The Grave Robbers Live at The 2013 Haskins House Rain Dog Fest.

Anyone interested in attending Street Art Saturday can find more info and RSVP on our Facebook Page.

Hope to see you there!

This painting was created by our dad, Charlie Haskins Sr. It is made entirely out of silkscreen ink. The hundreds of layers of colorful line work you see were carefully applied a single day at time over a period of seven years!

During his 25+ years working as a sign maker at Franz Sign Company, dad helped to create many products for the business. You could hardly go anywhere in Portsmouth without seeing some of his handy work. Riding in the car with him, you were bound to see various advertisements, yards signs, political signs, or “yes we’re open” signs and as you went down the road, you would hear dad chant, “I made that sign. I made that sign. I made that sign.”

Dad produced thousands upon thousands of signs for Franz, and although this project was made at Franz Sign Company, it was something dad made for himself. During his last seven years there, dad would end each day by dripping the leftover ink from that day’s orders onto this large sheet of plastic. Much like the painter, Jackson Pollock, dad created this picture without the aid of a brush. By orchestrating his loaded squeegee above the plastic sheet, he slowly dripped the ink into various shapes and patterns to help create an overall composition. As he added different hues, he would experiment with how he applied the ink and discovered ways to change the line quality in the work.  Sometimes he would apply the ink from far away and sometimes from an extreme close up. This technique was able to give him varying thicknesses in his line. He worked on this project in secret nearly the entire time and didn’t show anyone what he was working on until he felt that it was completed.

Once it was finished, he told me what it was like to work on. He said there were several times he had impulses to add different colors but had to be patient and work with the materials at hand. He told me occasionally a shirt or a political sign would get ordered and it contained a color he previously hadn’t had access to and he would get very excited. Sometimes it would be an expensive metallic ink or a neon color so rarely used in sign making that he would get lost in the process and just watch in awe as the ink cascaded from the squeegee and spilled out into valleys.

He told me that although he repeated the same process of dripping ink on the piece over and over for seven years, he was engaged with each additional mark. He believed that, although superficially it seemed the same each day, each application was unique.

More than anything else, I feel like this painting is a reflection of dad’s philosophies about what art can be and what it means to be an artist. As a kid, he would watch me draw and often say that a true artist should never blame his tools; they should try to experiment with lots of different media instead of specializing in only one; an artist should challenge themselves to be as creative as possible given whatever materials they have at their disposal.

American Phoenix 

Copyright C.Haskins 2016

Available at the store very soon!

I recently had the experience of going on the Positively Portsmouth television show. If you don’t count photo-bombing local news stories I think this my first time one T.V.!

If you missed the original air date you can watch the episode here!