Antemortem Arts | Fine Art & Custom Paintings

Brown Curls

Brown Curls by Amy Crook, $199

Today’s piece uses the pink Himalayan sea salt on a wash of golden yellow. Then I made little curls around each salt pool in two shades of brown, which reminded me a bit of tumbling locks of curling brown hair in the sunshine, with gems or perhaps droplets of water caught in them.

Brown Curls, 4″x8″ salt and watercolor on paper, $199 framed, with free shipping.

Brown Curls, detail, by Amy Crook

Above you can see the way the minerals in the pink salt settle out and add their own pigment to the painting, as well as getting a sense of the subtle sparkle the salt adds to the painting. I ship the salt paintings safely framed so that the three-dimensional crystal structures arrive in place and ready to display.

Tags: brown, for sale, salt, watercolor, yellow
Posted on January 27th, 2012 in Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Shop - Abstract and Just Plain Weird | No Comments »

Copper Beeches

Copper Beeches by Amy Crook, $323

This is one of those pieces that’s frustratingly difficult to color match or photograph in any reasonably representative way. The background is warm golds and orange-browns with layers of spirals in more browns and metallic copper. The salt pools are all centered over shiny copper spirals, though the salt itself didn’t pick up much color at all from either the background or the copper. There’s even a few golden leaves floating subtly through everything else, and that and the original Sherlock Holmes story are where the piece gets its name.

Copper Beeches, 8″x8″ salt and watercolor on paper, $323 framed with free shipping.

Copper Beeches, detail, by Amy Crook

Tags: brown, copper, for sale, gold, orange, salt, watercolor
Posted on January 26th, 2012 in Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Shop - Abstract and Just Plain Weird | No Comments »

Harry Potter Valentines

Harry Potter Valentine cartoon by Amy Crook

I wanted to make a silly Harry Potter Valentine card this year for my friends who love these characters, since not all of my friends got all fannish about Sherlock the way I did. One of them suggested Snape teaching Harry to brew those candy message hearts, and after googling for some bad Latin, this is the card front.

Of course, I couldn’t stop there, we had to see the results!

Harry & Snape's Candy Hearts

As you can see, someone’s got a bit of a crush on his teacher, but Snape’s still in denial. I’m sure it’ll have a happy ending, though.

Apericordis, 7″x5″ pen and ink and Copic markers on paper. You can get your own copy of this silly little card here on Etsy.

Tags: copic markers, etsy, Harry Potter, pen and ink, snape, valentine
Posted on January 25th, 2012 in Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of | 2 Comments »

Tentacle Deeps 24

Tentacle Deeps 24 by Amy Crook, $222

It’s Tuesday the 24th, which is the perfect day for Tentacle Deeps 24, don’t you think? It’s a good thing I’ve got it all ready to go.

I have really been enjoying my block of 4″x8″ watercolor paper, especially for the tentacles, although it means I’ll need to figure out a framing and matting situation for them sooner or later. I like the sense of depth it gives them with the extra vertical space above, in this case where the yellows shine in and then filter down through the textured space into bluer greens at the bottom. The tentacles are scribbled in with fountain pen on the black and brush pen on the grey.

Tentacle Deeps 24, 4″x8″ pen and ink and watercolor on paper, $222 framed, with free shipping.

I have to admit, I think every single one of the Tentacle Deeps paintings looks cool photographed this way, so I will probably never stop adding in the gratuitous creepy detail shots.

Tentacle Deeps 24, detail, by Amy Crook

Tags: for sale, green, pen and ink, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
Posted on January 24th, 2012 in Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Shop - Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Tentacles | No Comments »

Moon Valley

Moon Valley watercolor by Amy Crook, $299

I’ve been working for many months now on the re-launch of Moon Valley Astrologer, and it’s finally up, huzzah!

I used watercolors to create both the Moon Valley header art and the background of stars, though as you can see there was some Photoshop tomfoolery on her final header to make the moon more like a proper orange harvest moon. Not to mention the cropping and text!

Moon Valley Astrologer header by Amy Crook

This site was a huge undertaking, but I’m really happy that it’s all come together in time, and I look forward to continuing to work with Celeste as the site continues to grow. And of course my faithful code minion, Michael, who does the heavy lifting of implementing my designs with best practices.

The painting itself went through several practice versions, including the very creepy-sky study Mountains of Madness. This final has a peaceful, luminous quality that I think really goes well with her site and personality. Although it’s not really a portrait of the actual Moon Valley where she lives, it conveys the feeling we were hoping for in subtle, inviting colors that we then echoed into the rest of the site.

Moon Valley, 14″x8.5″ watercolor on paper, $299 with free shipping.

Tags: for sale, moon, moon valley astrologer, mountains, stars, watercolor
Posted on January 23rd, 2012 in Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Shop - Flowers, Trees and Landscapes | No Comments »

Tentacle Heart Cyclops

Coloring Book Doodle 48 - Tentacle Heart Cyclops

I scanned #49 today, too, and it’s hard to believe I’ve done that many of these doodles. I don’t always manage to draw in books (wholesale orders don’t get them, or last-minute-zomg ones), and sometimes I draw and forget to scan, but still. Nearly 50! That’s a lot of tentacles.

And yet, this guy is unimpressed. Isn’t that always the way?

Tags: coloring book, doodle, pen and ink, sketch
Posted on January 21st, 2012 in Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles | No Comments »

Ultramarine

Ultramarine by Amy Crook, $299

I’ve been wanting something other than plain white for backgrounds on the salt pieces just for contrast, so this time I painted the paper with a very light yellow wash and added in some slightly darker spirals to the mix. This whole piece is really about spirals, from the little watercolor stick spirals that didn’t dissolve even a tiny bit into the salt, to the big ones around the pools. It gets its name from the shade of blue, of course, ultramarine both inside and outside the salt pools.

Ultramarine, 6″x6″ watercolor and salt on paper, $299 framed, with free shipping.

In the same way that my scanner likes to think white paper is really blue, my camera often splashes them with red, so I’d say the real color is somewhere in between the detail below and the scan above. Oh, technology.