Mother Hydra
Posted on March 17th, 2012
Mother Hydra cartoon by Amy Crook
I’ve taken some liberties here and used a more classic interpretation of a hydra, rather than the Lovecraftian description of Father Dagon’s bride. There’s just no way to make a vast pool of screaming faces cute, really.
As it is, I can totally imagine at least one of her heads yelling, “No more wire hangers!” She’s even got pearls and lovely pink-painted claws nails.
Just don’t mention the screaming faces and monstrous claws pressing against her heavy, pregnant belly. Or think about what sort of monsters she’s the mother of, if you want to sleep tonight.
Mother Hydra, 5″x7″ pen and ink and Copic markers on paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: cartoon, copic marker, cthulhu, etsy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, weeble
Outlier
Posted on March 16th, 2012
Outlier, abstract art by Amy Crook, $399
Sometimes I can’t really explain why I like a piece of art, I just really do, and this is one of those. The scan really doesn’t do it justice, the green whorls and rays, and the purple lines joining the various salt pools. This one started with the salt pools in varying color intensities, then I put in the gel pen lines, and finally the spirals of watercolor. The watercolor picked up the glitter from the pen lines, and so there’s a subtle shimmer all through each one.
Outlier, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper, $399 framed, with free shipping.
Outlier, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above is the smallest, darkest and furthest-flung of the salt pools. There’s a little scribbled spiral of purple around just this one outlying pool, and you can see how the glitter got distributed all through the spiral of watercolor. Below, a photo of three of the other pools in a row (and that wash of red in the upper left my camera seems determined to give this paper, sigh). I made an iPhone wallpaper of a similar shot, and I’m using it for my lock screen right now. Or at least until I change my mind again.
Outlier, detail 2, by Amy Crook
I like the way it looks in a frame, too, as though everything’s pulling against the purple lines and trying to find a way to sneak out of the frame entirely, tied together by forces you can’t quite name.
Outlier, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, glitter gel pen, green, iridescent, purple, salt, watercolor
Implied Goldfish
Posted on March 15th, 2012
Implied Goldfish, watercolor by Amy Crook, $399
This is the sort of art that just makes me feel a little bit more delighted with the world when I look at it. Happy little goldfish swim around partially camouflaged by the white paper, while rings of sparkly blue gel pin circle the three-dimensional salt formations. Are they stones? The first fat drops of rain? Strange portals to another world? The implications are endless.
Implied Goldfish, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, $399 framed, with free shipping.
Now here’s where I admit something very silly: today’s art is inspired by one of my mismatched cereal bowls. Really they’re rice bowls, but I mostly use them for Cheerios.
Omnomnom Fishies!
I buy a lot of my dishes in Japantown and this is no exception. Maybe one of these days I’ll do a giant picspam on a Weds of a bunch of them. There’s kitties!
Below, you can see the sparkly salt and glittery pen next to the totally unconcerned fishies. The color’s a bit off, because this is the paper my camera likes to think is secretly red (hint: it’s not).
Implied Goldfish, detail, by Amy Crook
And finally we have the usual framed art, a peaceful little pond to sit on your desk or tuck into a tiny bit of wall space.
Implied Goldfish, framed art by Amy Crook, $399
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals
Tags: blue, fish, for sale, glitter gel pen, orange, salt, watercolor
Use Me, Baby
Posted on March 14th, 2012
Question: Can you use my art for this thing you want to do?
Answer: Maybe!
Growth by Amy Crook
Useful, huh? Well, maybe not.
Let me elaborate.
First off, everything I make is under copyright. Everything any artist makes is under copyright, unless they’ve specifically stated it’s not, or they’ve been dead long enough for it to expire.
That said, I’ve put most art on this site under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. This sounds complicated, but it’s not, I swear. Basically this means you can use my art if:
Tentacle Deeps 6 by Amy Crook
- You’re not making money off your use of it,
- You don’t change it,
- You credit me, and
- You link back to my site (either the specific post or the site in general) in the place you use it.
If you skip one of these steps, then you’re stealing my art, and that’s not very nice.
When can’t you use my art?
- If the post is tagged “all rights reserved” or it’s marked as a commission (often I’ve done both), it’s not available for re-use at all, period.
- If you want to put the image on or in a product such as an eBook, album cover, t-shirt or umbrella, you need to contact me about paying for a rights-restricted license. Basically, if you expect to make money off of it, then you need to pay me to use it.
- If you want to change the art, such as slapping text on it for a blog header, using it as a background for your own art, or shifting the colors to match your post theme, that’s not okay.
Don’t make me send this guy after you.
If you make money with your blog (either as marketing for your business or by getting advertisers), blog headers count as commercial use, anyway.
If you’re not sure, just email me! I’m totally open to helping you out here.
Okay, so when can you use my art?
If you want to use it as a blog post image, go ahead, as long as you credit and link back.
Summer Reading
by Amy Crook
If you want to use it as a wallpaper for your computer (or print 1000 of them and wallpaper your apartment), have at. There’s even a category for posts that have free wallpapers in them. Some are cropped for iPhone, some are just huge-sized for the biggest monitor you might happen to have.
There’s probably a ton of stuff I haven’t covered here, but the basic idea is, if you want to put some tentacles on a blog post you’re probably okay. If you want to put some tentacles on your own line of handmade back-scratchers, that’s probably not okay, but email me and we’ll talk.
You can also ask questions here, if there’s something I haven’t covered. Someone else is probably wondering the same thing, after all.
Sherlock Bookmark 4 by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: creative commons, info, licensing, use my art
2 Comments »
Tentacle Deeps 29
Posted on March 13th, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 29, watercolor by Amy Crook
Unlike last week’s tentacles, these, you can have if you want to. Yes, Tuesday is upon us once again and this time I used the opaque Japanese watercolors on black paper to create a wonderful bright green background with an intriguing squamous texture. I used black paint to put in the tentacles, letting it re-wet the green and mix in, giving the whole thing a monochromatic, layered feeling. I’ve been trying to get back to doing the fading layers of tentacles, dark at first with lighter and more transparent ones fading off into the distance, though I do love some of the ones I’ve done with a single layer, as well. Basically, I just like tentacles. I know, you’re shocked.
I’ve been flipping through some of the last year or so’s worth of art, and it’s interesting to see how the tentacles started out in one specific style and then evolved into something else. Revisiting those older pieces, I’ve been revisiting some of the original ideas, like having the wash only take up a portion of the page instead of running edge to edge.
Tentacle Deeps 29, 5″x7″ watercolor on paper.
Tentacle Deeps 29, detail, by Amy Crook
Above is your usual close-up of the reaching tentacles. Maybe one of these days I’ll take a photo of them reaching toward the camera, instead, just for variety. Below is the usual picture in the usual frame. Who ever thought there’d be “the usual tentacles” in your life?
Tentacle Deeps 29, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: black paper, for sale, green, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
Violet Way
Posted on March 12th, 2012
Violet Way, abstract art by Amy Crook
This is a larger piece like Golden Moon, done with the same black paper. This time I used a pearlescent violet paint and created a swath of larger stars, then filled in with smaller, salt-free spirals to give a feeling of clustered stars, like looking up at the Milky Way. This paint looks white from some angles and a lovely pale violet from others; the scanner picks up the violets pretty well, so for once I think the colors are pretty accurate.
Violet Way, 10″x8″ iridescent Japanese watercolor and salt on Arches cover black paper.
Like most of my salt paintings, this one started in the spirit of experimentation. I just bought some new watercolors from Japantown (along with ALL the pens), and I wanted to see how they’d work with the salt. techniques. I made a special effort to mix extra paint into the water droplets after they were on the paper, and you can see how it looked while I was working on it below.
Violet Way, work in progress, detail 1, by Amy Crook
You can see one freshly-painted spiral at the bottom, and then the water droplet just above that and to the left is opaque with swirled paint. It settled out after a while, as you can see in the droplets further away, but the salt pools have a definite coating of iridescent paint you can see in the next photo.
Violet Way, work in progress, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Below you can see a more oblique shot of one tiny detail in the finished piece, one single pool of salt surrounded by the little echoing spirals. I really love the way you can see each individual salt crystal, especially if you click through to the larger version of the image.
Violet Way, detail, by Amy Crook
I’ve also made a computer wallpaper, should you like to splash my artificial stars across your computer screen. Finally, you can see it in its frame below, attempting to turn itself into a mirror. Glass reflects, who knew?
Violet Way, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Free Wallpapers
Tags: black paper, iridescent, moon, nfs, salt, spirals, violet
Tea Mug sketch
Posted on March 11th, 2012
Tea Mug, sketch by Amy Crook
This little sketch christened my new pocket sketchbook! I drink my tea super cream-and-sugary (mmm half’n’half), so the white at the bottom is actually my drink. I didn’t let myself spend too long fussing over perspective or shading, so it’s got a funky slant I quite enjoy.
Have a cup on me this Sunday — what’s your favorite sort?
Categories: Daily Art
Tags: nfs, pencil, sketch, tea
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