Party Octopus
Posted on March 24th, 2012
Party Octopus cartoon by Amy Crook
Party Octo’s in the house tonight! Everybody just have a good time…
And now that you have that earworm, too, I shall leave you to enjoy your Saturday.
Party Octopus, 5″x7″ pen & ink and Copic marker on paper. You can buy him on a card at Etsy, he makes a great birthday card or party invite!
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Tentacles
Tags: copic marker, martini, octopus, party, pen and ink, purple, weeble
Interfering Blues
Posted on March 23rd, 2012
Interfering Blues, abstract art by Amy Crook, $234
This is another of those pieces that’s challenging to photograph, and I totally did it to myself. I had the lovely ultramarine spirals already as a simple, elegant piece, but they sat around for weeks feeling unfinished before I got my new shiny Japanese watercolors. I used the blue from the pearlescent set to paint a second set of ghostly spirals atop the first, which are barely visible from some angles, and from others take on a lovely iridescent blue hue.
I’m definitely doing well with my new year’s resolution to paint more spirals on things, and I have to admit there’s something I find really charming about this particular set. The colors and shapes are very simple and bold, but they work for me.
Interfering Blues, 6″x6″ watercolor on paper, $234 with free shipping.
Interfering Blues, detail 1, by Amy Crook
These pieces are deeply frustrating to photograph. For instance here, the paper is really a nice bright white, but since the shine is even brighter but also blue, I can’t really color balance the way I’d like to. But, at least you can see the pale blue shine on some of the spirals at this angle!
Interfering Blues, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Above is more of a close-up of just one spiral, which captures the full range of color on the paint from a pearly warm white on the right to the shining blue on the left. This is such a nifty image I made a computer wallpaper of it, if you’d like a little more interference blue in your day.
The piece ships unframed for $234, but if you’d like me to frame it for you (or want to talk about anything, really!), feel free to email me about it.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers
Tags: blue, for sale, interference, iridescent, watercolor
In the Spiraling Blue
Posted on March 22nd, 2012
In the Spiraling Blue, abstract art by Amy Crook
This art is deceptively simple, just one color of paint on the soft, cream paper. French Ultramarine is a rich, bright blue and it mixes pretty well with the salt to give a pale blue tint to the crystals without dulling their luster. This is the last of 3 pieces I did experimenting with various shades of blue paint, and it sat around the longest, trying to figure out what else it needed.
It turns out, it just needed for me to decide it was finished.
Sometimes art is like that, there’s always the temptation to take it one step further and possibly ruin it. This sat in my shelf for a few weeks while I glanced over and considered what else I might do with it, and eventually I realized that the strong, swooping spirals were enough by themselves, especially mixed with the tiny ones at the center of each salt pool.
In the Spiraling Blue, 7″x5″ salt and watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
In the Spiraling Blue, detail 1, by Amy Crook
The camera really shows both the soft sky blue color of the salt and the way it sparkles in the sunlight. It also tends to wash the paper with slightly more yellow than it has, giving the whole thing a blue-and-gold feeling that’s more subtle in the real thing. This iPhone wallpaper shows off the real colors a little better.
In the Spiraling Blue, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers
Tags: blue, for sale, salt, spirals, watercolor
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Posted on March 21st, 2012
Badlands, now (left) and then (right)
Fugitive dyes, migrating materials, slow-moving chemical reactions — sometimes art changes over time. What’s a girl to do?
Well, I just try to sit back and enjoy it, honestly. When the salt formations in Badlands (above) began to fade from pale pink to white, I did move it out of the sun (oops), and now I’ve been thinking of ways to sneak some pink back in. Which is hilarious, because I remember being all baffled by what to do with the pink salt in the first place, since pink is so not my color. How far we’ve come!
I will try to warn a buyer if I think a piece will change over time, so they don’t get disappointed, but sometimes it comes as a surprise. If you remember my series of hibsicus tea paintings, it’s been very illuminating to pull them out of their storage drawer and find that the color-changing reactions have continued to (very slowly) continue to change colors as time goes on. You can see how the tea has faded to a more subtle color in the whorls of Hibiscus Green below.
Hibiscus Green, now (left) and then (right)
Mixing materials in wacky experiments also sometimes has long-term results. While the copper paint from these two little pots seems to have stayed where it was put, the salt in Midnight Rain (below) has meandered out to the edges of the iridescence and created a different — but to my mind no less appealing — set of shapes and colors.
Midnight Rain, now (left) and then (right)
All of these changes are really subtle, as you can see from the photos (not to mention the inherent dangers in color correcting with Photoshop). In a way, I see it as the art continuing merrily on its way without me, and giving me extra bonus results that I never expected.
What do you think, how would you feel if a piece of art you bought changed itself to something else, right before your eyes?
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: changes, hibiscus, info, salt
Tentacle Deeps 30
Posted on March 20th, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 30 by Amy Crook
I actually took the time to trim this cool green cardstock down to size, so it fits just fine in a 4″x6″ frame. I realize I have a ton of frames that size, from when I was trying to get the handmade postcards to fit. I finally gave up and started matting them into a bigger frame, so I’ve got a bunch of extra frames that obviously need tentacles.
The background is pure zoisite green, granulated and squamous just the way I like it. The foreground tentacles are a blue-black that gets bluer as the tentacles “recede” into the translucent background layers. I like the extra dimension the piece gets from colored paper and colored tentacles as well as the usual colored background, the whole thing is sort of eerie and otherworldly.
Also, green.
Tentacle Deeps 30, 6″x4″ watercolor on paper.
Tentacle Deeps 30, detail, by Amy Crook
The color in the above close-up shot is a bit off, my camera keeps trying to add red to correct the green, but it’s still cool. Below you can see it with my iPhone for scale. I always think it’s neat seeing the art reflected in the surface of the phone, even if I don’t love the reflections of the room in the glass on the artwork.
Tentacle Deeps 30, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: blue, crane and co, for sale, green, studio gallery, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
Event Horizons: Black, Blacker, Blackest
Posted on March 19th, 2012
Event Horizons: Black, Blacker, Blackest watercolor triptych by Amy Crook
I entered this triptych in the juried art auction for IMSA25, the 25th anniversary for my old high school. They wanted art with a theme of energy and innovation, and the connection of these mini black holes was enough to get in, thankfully.
I actually only had the first piece done, the white one, when I decided to enter them into the show. The idea to make them into a triptych came later, and I really think the framing on their grey backing paper was the final piece that the work needed to come together. The salt pools in all three pieces are infused with fountain pen ink, and then I used the pen to draw a circle around each pool, a little event horizon between the pool and the black halo around it.
Interestingly, the black paper absorbed the Lunar Black paint too well for it to really granulate like it does on the other two pieces, and the paint is just slightly blacker than the paper itself, which provides an interesting contrast to the other two parts of the series. The whole thing makes me think of atoms or micro black holes, something tiny and mysterious that can’t normally be seen with the naked eye.
Event Horizons: Black, Blacker, Blackest, 3-5″x7″ mixed media on paper, nfs (available at the auction only).
I’ve got one detail shot from each piece for you, anyway, just because I think they’re beautiful.
Event Horizons 1: Black, detail, by Amy Crook
Event Horizons 2: Blacker, detail, by Amy Crook
Event Horizons 3: Blackest, detail, by Amy Crook
This is my first juried show in nearly 20 years, so I was extremely nervous about entering, and very excited to get in! I just thought you should know that. Heh.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: art auction, black paper, pen and ink, salt, triptych, watercolor
Orange Face sketch
Posted on March 18th, 2012
Orange Face sketch by Amy Crook
This is actually a virulent orange in my wee sketchbook, but by desaturating it a little bit, you can see some of the brushstrokes that a super-bright orange hides on a monitor. I sketched this with a sumi-e brush and the orange paint leftover from making my goldfish, using the pause screen on whatever DVD I was watching as a very loose reference.
I’m pleased that, although the paper buckled some, the paint didn’t bleed through onto the next page.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: nfs, orange, sketch, watercolor
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