Antemortem Arts | Fine Art & Custom Paintings

Year of the Water Horse

Year of the Water Horse by Amy Crook

One of the design projects I do every year is the Starcycles Calendar, a dayplanner-style appointment book with an astrological bent by Georgia Stathis. For me, the covers are always my favorite part, and something I look forward to every year. 2002 was year of the Water Horse in Chinese astrology, and at the time Georgia had a guest writer who contributed an essay to the book. We were still doing them in print with these three-panel coves that wrapped around, and so when I found this giant 18″x36″ canvas, I just knew I had to use it for that project.

When we were discussing ideas for the cover, I kept thinking of the various stories and legends of horses or unicorns born out of the foam of the ocean, and being the good sport she is, Georgia let me run with it. I first painted the sunny beach in blues and sandy browns with its white, foam-capped surf coming in, and then added the mysterious watery horses with soft pastels on top of the canvas, once it was dry.

Here’s a study I did of just the horses, before I put them onto the painting itself.

And here’s a shot of the painting, before I put the horses in.

Year of the Water Horse, 18″x36″, oil and pastel on canvas, $1199 with free shipping.

Tags: beach, for sale, horse, oil painting, sea sale, starcycles

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Shop - Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Shop - Sea Creatures and Other Animals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.