Rain Crow

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Rain Crow, art by Amy Crook

A wonderful person who’d just found my site emailed me to ask if I’d done anything with ravens/crows or dragons, and I realized that, despite both of these being themes I really enjoy, I really hadn’t. After doing my little crow sketch the other day, I decided to actually google up what a real crow looks like (yes, still too lazy to look out the window, hush) and used those references to draw this.

All the color in the crow comes from ink pens, which I scribbled with delightful abandon to create the basic shape and color fill on the crow, and then after the salt on the beak had formed, I went back in with plain water and added the gorgeous watercolor-esque wash over the whole crow.

After I put in the ground, I decided it needed something in the sky around it, and the obvious choice for me was salt-pool raindrops in this soft aqua blue pen.

Rain Crow, 7″x5″ pen & ink, watercolor, and salt on paper, nfs (sold).

The real amazing part of this crow is actually the part you can’t actually see except from a very specific angle, this amazing salt formation right over its eye that’s actually in the shape of a fat little black bird, which I photographed framed by one of the water droplets that would later become a salt pool. This formation is incredibly fragile, so I didn’t even put the piece on the scanner, just took photos and have now put it in a shadow-box frame where it will stay protected.

Rain Crow, detail 1, by Amy Crook

The salt on the crow’s beak and eye formed with a really neat oil-slick sheen, which is totally lost in the closeup above, so I took another one for you below:

Rain Crow, detail 2, by Amy Crook

The frame I found is this soft silver shadow box, though I’m keeping my eye out for another frame that would allow you to pick it up and view the piece from the side, which is the best way to see its amazing secret.

Rain Crow, framed, by Amy Crook

Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: blackbird, crow, nfs, pen and ink, salt, sold, watercolor