Flowers, Trees and Landscapes « Antemortem Arts

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Drifting Down

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Drifting Down by Amy Crook, $277

Another salt experiment, this time using pen and ink in a different way. The spirals inside the salt pools are actually watercolor, which the water didn’t really pick up at all this time, and then the grass and vines are both pen-and-ink that’s been brushed with water to give it a different texture.

I really like the peaceful, floating quality of this piece. The little salt pools seem weightless as they rest like the barest fluff on the upright grass. Actually it reminds me a bit of Horton Hears a Who — I wonder if there’s any Whos hiding there?

Drifting Down, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper, $277 framed, with free shipping.

Drifting Down, detail, by Amy Crook

The meagre winter sunlight this time of year doesn’t catch the sparkle on the salt very well, but you can really see the texture of the paper and the watercolor-like quality of the curling ink vines. Below you can see it in a frame (with my iPhone for scale – not included, heh). It would fit nicely on a desk at work, for anytime you needed a moment of peace and weightlessness, growth from above and below and the effortless connection between them.

Drifting Down, framed art by Amy Crook, $277

If you think you’d like to bring this piece into your life, or are just too shy to comment, feel free to email me! I’m always happy to help find the right home for my art, or just chat.

Tags: brush and ink, for sale, pen and ink, salt, vines, watercolor
Posted in Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Shop - Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes | No Comments »

Mountains of Madness

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Mountains of Madness by Amy Crook, $299

This piece started out as an experiment in painting mountains for a client, and turned into a bewitchingly creepy landscape once I put in the sky. I used salt to create the ghostly texture in the sky, which one person described as a crowd of people staring down. Spooky!

I named it after a classic HP Lovecraft story that I haven’t even read (I know! Bad artist! No biscuit!), but the name just seemed to fit with the looming sky and lunatic moon.

Mountains of Madness, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper, $299 with free shipping.

Here you can see it tucked into a frame, which can be included for an additional fee.

Mountains of Madness, framed art by Amy Crook

Tags: for sale, lovecraft, mountains, watercolor
Posted in Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books, Shop - Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes | 1 Comment »

Summer Reading

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Summer Reading by Amy Crook, $299

I started this piece during the recent Playshop call with Melissa Dinwiddie, then went back and finished it up later. The tree and figure are painted with just two colors, quinacridone gold and amazonite genuine, and then I added in a bit of soft cadmium yellow when I went back and did the sky, and added in the fuller foliage. I especially like the way some of the leaves have little haloes of gold, and the rich greens and browns that came out of just those two colors mixed in different proportions.

Summer Reading, 5″x7″ watercolor on paper, $299 with free shipping.

I think this would make a great piece to put in a bookshelf, nestled between books to remind you of the joy of reading. The frame isn’t included, but I’d be happy to frame it for you for an additional fee.

Summer Reading, framed, by Amy Crook

Tags: for sale, playshop, reading, tree, watercolor
Posted in Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Shop - People, Figures and Faces | No Comments »

Sunset Postcard

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

Sunset Postcard by Amy Crook, $222

This watercolor is actually from five years ago. It managed to escape the general posting of old art last year, but I decided to frame and scan it when I ran across it the other day when I was framing some other art.

When I was younger I swear I must have painted dozens of sunsets, usually with skeletal winter trees in front, the black branches framed by colored light. I don’t have many of those left, so this one is very nostalgic for me. My favorite part is along the line of the sun itself, where some of the red has bled onto the sun the way sometimes the sky seems to waver around the edges as the sun sinks below the horizon.

Sunset Postcard, approx. 6″x4″ watercolor on handmade postcard, $222, framed, with free shipping.

I floated the postcard on a black mat within a larger frame, which makes the vivid sunset colors glow out from the darkness.

Sunset Postcard, framed watercolor by Amy Crook, $222

Tags: for sale, handmade postcard, watercolor
Posted in Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes | No Comments »

Violet Midnight 2

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Violet Midnight 2 by Amy Crook, $242

I’ve been thinking about making prints lately, and that’s led me to think about the way that the salt paintings are really unprintable — while a print of a normal piece is maybe half as cool as the real piece, but printing the salt pieces loses 90% of their awesomeness. So, with that in mind, I mixed up a slightly different mix of the violet-black from Violet Midnight and made a piece that only used the salt for visual texture rather than physical structure. There’s no shiny paint, no sparkly salt, just simple ink and watercolor.

I actually started it the same way I do any salt piece, with spirals in ink on paper, but this time I went straight to painting the background (which has little salt-made stars, done the traditional way by scattering salt onto the damp paint), then used plain water to pick up the ink and create haloes of golden orange around the sun and larger stars.

And so, I bring you my very first available art print!

Violet Midnight 2, 7″x5″ watercolor, pen and ink on paper.
Original: $242, framed, with free shipping.
Print: $32, unframed, with free shipping.

Here’s how it looks in a frame, with my iPhone for scale:

Violet Midnight 2, framed art by Amy Crook

Violet Midnight 2, framed, by Amy Crook, $242

Tags: for sale, moon, orange, pen and ink, salt, spirals, violet, watercolor
Posted in Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes | 1 Comment »

Violet Midnight

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Violet Midnight by Amy Crook

Another image I keep revisiting, the moon glowing in the night sky. I went for a simple duochrome effect, the stars and moon drawn in orange ink, then the stars turned warm and golden when the salt and water were added. I used a dark blue-violet paint, which was making such fascinating shapes and shadows on its own as it pooled and flowed that I decided not to try to add any more stars and let the velvety paint stand on its own. Then I used a metallic copper watercolor to create the haloes around the moon and stars, the color an excellent match to the orange ink.

Violet Midnight, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, nfs.

This piece has a great contrast between the matte violet paint and shimmery, iridescent copper paint; between the flat ink and three-dimensional salt crystals; between the meticulous spiral pattern in the moon and the random, cloudy shapes in the sky.

Violet Midnight, detail 1, by Amy Crook

Here you can really see how the interplay of colors and textures up close.

Violet Midnight, detail 2, by Amy Crook

A simple black frame protects the salt, and makes the vivid colors really glow.

Violet Midnight, framed art by Amy Crook

Violet Midnight, framed, by Amy Crook

Tags: moon, nfs, orange, pen and ink, salt, sold, stars, violet, watercolor
Posted in Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes | 4 Comments »

Mud Puddle

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Mud Puddle by Amy Crook, $444

This is one of the last of my tea experiments from a few months ago. I had the piece sitting around for weeks and weeks not really being anything, until one day I was in a crosshatching mood and suddenly I saw it as a mud puddle just needing a grassy lawn all around it. The puddle itself was made of strong black tea, and the spots of texture were big crystals of salt, some of which had a bit of watercolor left on them to add a touch of color to the tea.

Mud Puddle, 5″x5″ mixed media on paper, $444, framed, with free shipping.

I spent a couple of hours putting in the green pen-and-ink grass around the tea puddle, and I took photos with my iPhone as it progressed (though I forgot to take a before shot, oops).

Mud Puddle, work in progress, by Amy Crook

When I’m working on a piece like this, I often spin it this way and that while I’m working to get a better angle for whatever I’m doing. Then, if it’s an abstract piece, I look at it in all four directions before I decide on which way is really up and sign it.

Mud Puddle, detail, by Amy Crook

There’s a bit of subtle sparkle in the area where some of the salt sat, but the chunks remained mostly intact instead of dissolving into the tea, so there’s no crystal formations beyond the tiny ones you can see above.

The frame I’ve got it in is a little lighter than it shows in the photo, though I’m considering one even a shade lighter to go better with the delicate tea-dyed puddle.