Sunrise Crows
Posted on January 21st, 2013
Sunrise Crows by Amy Crook
The colors of this sunrise will seem familiar from Friday’s post, I hope, with gentler clouds and the birds to bring it out of abstraction. There’s still shimmery spirals in blues and golds, but they’re softer, fluffy clouds instead of stormy ones. The three birds are flying along not really in formation but just hanging out, the sunlight shining on and through their feathers, making them almost ghostly in the morning light.
Sunrise Crows, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper, nfs (sold).
Sunrise Crows, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the sunlight glimmering off the iridescent paint, and the tiny feathery details in the middle crow. The golden clouds get hints of rose and orange, while the blue ones go softly aquamarine. Below, you can see the piece hanging out on my writing desk in a frame, waiting to fly off to their new home.
Sunrise Crows, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books
Tags: blue, crow, duochrome, gold, iridescent, nfs, sold, spirals, sunrise, watercolor
Sketchy Crows
Posted on January 20th, 2013
3 Crows sketch by Amy Crook
Every time I print postage with Paypal, I get a half-sheet of paper left over printed with a totally useless receipt. I save them and use them for various and sundry things, like testing paint color mixes and, apparently, doodling crows with Sharpie marker. I like that the last one looks a bit Seussian.
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: nfs, sharpie marker, sketch
Halloweentown Holmes
Posted on January 19th, 2013
Halloweentown Holmes by Amy Crook
I saw someone posting about Sherlock and Mycroft being originally from Halloweentown in the Nightmare Before Christmas universe, with an older, skeletal brother Sherrinford. I couldn’t resist drawing it up with just a bit of my own silly style added in!
Sherlock’s even dead. Well, undead. Well, you know, Halloweentown. I just couldn’t resist the urge to draw them, given how much my cartooning style owes to Jack Skellington. Sherrinford’s even got a bat for his cravat.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: copic marker, mycroft, mycroft holmes, nfs, nightmare before christmas, pen and ink, sherlock, sherlock bbc, sherlock holmes, sold
Spiral Sunrise
Posted on January 18th, 2013
Spiral Sunrise by Amy Crook
This is one of those hard-to-capture pieces, made of cool sky blues and warm sunny golds that mix and mingle in a way that, weirdly, doesn’t actually make much green. Despite the fact that I’m never awake to see them, I wanted to capture a little bit of that feeling of sunrise, when the golden-warm light seeps upward and honey-dips the cool, night-blue clouds. There’s swirls of orangey-gold Duochrome Adobe, shimmery-cold Iridescent Moonstone, and three different metallic blues, all sharing the space with a warm yellow and sky blue background.
Spiral Sunrise, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper.
Spiral Sunrise, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the coppery Adobe, shimmery blue and night-tinted Moonstone catching the sunlight. Below, the pieces is tucked into a frame, hanging out with my iPhone.
Spiral Sunrise, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: blue, duochrome, for sale, gold, iridescent, spirals, sunrise, watercolor
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V is for Value
Posted on January 17th, 2013
V is for Value, calligraphic illumination by Amy Crook
Value is a term for how dark something is, the range from black to white, so I explored that in two ways with this piece. First the V itself is a simple triangle shaded with a brush and pre-mixed black sumi-e ink. Then the background is shaded more like an old-fashioned etching, using the red glitter gel pen and my own wobbly handmade lines to create a fade in the opposite direction.
I have to admit, there’s something very ’80s music video about the result, like the logo for some new wave band. Perhaps there’s a Victor or Virginia in your life that are big fans of Duran Duran and need this in their life.
V is for Value, 5″x5″ sumi-e ink and glitter gel pen on paper.
V is for Value, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a bit of the glittery red gel pen making the pen-shaded light-to-dark value in the background, and just the little tip of the V where the ink was determined to mostly stay at a middle tone. Below, you can see the V hanging out with the O and a little preview of X to spell “vox.”
V, O and X, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Illuminated Alphabet, Series and Books, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: alphabet, calligraphy, for sale, glitter gel pen, illumination, red, sumi-e ink
Sherlock Hardcase
Posted on January 16th, 2013
Sherlock Gelaskin iPhone Hardcase, art by Amy Crook
As much as I adore my beloved Gelaskin stickers, my iPhone has been dropped enough times that I really needed a bit more protection. Gelaskin has again come to the rescue with my lovely custom hardcase, featuring my drawing of Sherlock in all his glorious ennui. There’s even a secret hedgehog.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: iphone, mine, nfs, sherlock, sherlock bbc, sherlock holmes
Rules Gremlin
Posted on January 15th, 2013
Rules Gremlin by Amy Crook for Jo Van Every
I’m afraid this Tuesday is tentacle-free, which is probably against one of the many rules on this Gremlin’s parchment. He’s another commission for Jo VanEvery to use in her work — she’s promised to post about him and yesterday’s cartoon soon, so keep an eye out! I found the first sketch for this in my photos recently (I take iPhone photos to show a client their sketches rather than scanning them, to save a bit of time), and I was amused to remember that he’d originally been tall and skinny. We both liked his scroll so much that I kept the overall height, and instead added some books to stand on and made him wide and squat instead.
Rules Gremlin, 5″x7″ pen & ink and Copic marker on paper, nfs (commission), all rights reserved.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: all rights reserved, cartoon, commission, copic marker, jo vanevery, nfs, pen and ink
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