A Baker’s Dozen: My Favorite Art of 2014
Tuesday, January 13th, 2015
I know the time for all those “best of, most of” posts has mostly passed, but it’s the 13th and I couldn’t resist the chance to share with you my favorites* of 2014, month by month. Some of them have sold and some haven’t, and at least one of them is displayed in my studio, but they were all the art I was most proud of from this year.
*I’m only choosing paintings and not comics for this, because reasons.
January
Death of a Comet by Amy Crook
Jumping right in with the strange, nerdy, abstract art! This cold piece lives right at the collision between deliberate and random, and this technique shows up a lot in the following months.
February
Island by Amy Crook
I developed a fascination with maps to nowhere this year, and this is one of the best. Another mix of random and deliberate, there’s just enough strangeness hiding in the mundane details to keep the eye occupied for ages.
March
Meet Me on Saturn by Amy Crook
I unabashedly love this piece, a mix of delicate watercolor and fannish squee. It came out exactly the way I imagined it would, and makes me think gleefully of Beetlejuice every time I see it.
April
Yearning by Amy Crook
This painting is one of those that I want to take to the house of every person on my list and go, look, look how cool this is in person! It’s made entirely of duochrome paints that catch the light reveal layer upon layer of color reaching out from one corner to the other, always yearning, never touching.
May
Harbingers by Amy Crook
Spirals! Crows! Stormclouds! Basically a bunch of stuff I love, all in one painting.
June
Wood Elf by Amy Crook
A little like a green man, something of a naiad, I love the fierce attitude and ambiguity of the figure in this painting. Don’t mess with the wood elves, man, they’ll mess right back.
July
Invent the Universe by Amy Crook
One of the internet’s (and my own) favorite Carl Sagan quotes, along with a swirling vortex of light and color. What’s not to love?
August
Winter by Amy Crook
This was my holiday card this year, a painting that is completely abstract and yet evokes quite strongly the feel of trees and snow and winter. I’m also reminded of the way rain freezes on the window when the sun sets, frost forming off the runnels of water, making beautiful new patterns as the water changes states.
September
Drowned and Dreamt by Amy Crook
Red blooms against the murky green in this homage to the opening credits of Skyfall. I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, but it wasn’t until this year that I really fell into the fandom, and this was one of the results.
October
Cloud Sea by Amy Crook
Another abstract painting that evokes similar images in everyone who sees it, this painting is like rough water reflecting the softness of stormclouds skating above in the wind.
November
Dreamlands by Amy Crook
Something about the dreamy, half-real feeling of this painting made it my favorite for November, beating out several other contenders by a tentacle.
December
Autumn by Amy Crook
I didn’t love the sky in this when I first painted it, but now it’s my favorite part. Artists are contrary that way, but it’s also that something about the impressionist, flame-bright trees below the storm that makes it truly an autumn sky to me.
Best of 2014
Maleficent by Amy Crook
I spent so many hours on this drawing each little arc and dragon scale, carving them into the paper and purple paint with a red fountain pen. I watched Disney’s animated Sleeping Beauty while I worked, thinking of the powerful dragon Maleficent, and the alternative history we got for that tale this year as well. So much work, but well worth it.
Which, really, could sum up the whole year in art for me.
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