Blog « Antemortem Arts | Art & Writing by Amy Crook

Gift Tags

Posted on November 9th, 2011

Holiday Gift Tags by Amy Crook

Holiday Gift Tags by Amy Crook, $9.99 a pack

A couple of people asked me about gift tags this year, so I took 5 of my favorite holiday cards and turned them into tags! They’re printed on parchment cardstock, with a hole punched for easy attaching. 15 cards in a pack, either all one thing or an assortment of 3 each, and shipping’s free.

You can pick them up at my Etsy shop during the holidays!

Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Tentacles, Whimsical and Strange
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Tentacle Deeps 19

Posted on November 8th, 2011

Tentacle Deeps 19, watercolor by Amy Crook

Tentacle Deeps 19 by Amy Crook

The background on this is a rich, pure quinacridone gold wash that glows with color like a sunset. I used a brush pen to create the tentacles, which silhouette nicely against the gold. The ink took forever to dry on the thick watercolor paint, but once it did the blackest areas look rich and matte against the slightly glossy paint.

Tentacle Deeps 18, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper.

Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
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Kitties Visit Baker St.

Posted on November 7th, 2011

Kitties Visit Baker St. cartoon by Amy Crook

Kitties Visit Baker St. cartoon by Amy Crook

This little commission was done for a request of John & Sherlock playing with my kitties, so Belladonna (left) and Pteropodidae (right) go to take a little trip to Baker Street. Bella’s fully recovered from her tooth drama, and has found John a comfy, warm place to look annoyed about being petted. Sherlock has, predictably, decided to experiment with Pod and a laser pointer (he also refuses to call Pod by anything other than his full name).

All in all it was fun do draw cartoon versions of my kitties, and of course I always enjoy John & Sherlock.

Kitties Visit Baker St., 7″x5″ pen and ink on paper, not for sale, commission.

Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
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Pumpkin of Son of Coloring Book Doodles

Posted on November 5th, 2011

Weeble Pumpkin sketch by Amy Crook

Weeble Pumpkin sketch by Amy Crook

This pumpkin is not impressed with your carving skills, nor with his un-timely posting. But he’s just so cute!

Categories: Daily Art, Series and Books, Whimsical and Strange
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Pond

Posted on November 4th, 2011

Pond, abstract art by Amy Crook

Pond by Amy Crook, $323

I decided that I wanted to go back to the original visual image that came to me with the salt pools and depict them in blue-green ink, with ripples going out, fading as they go from each pool. I imagine these like the frozen moment after the drop has hit, the ring of bigger crystasl around the edge like the splash, and each subsequent ring of paint a ripple growing fainter as it travels away from the center point. The whole piece has a very soothing, Zen-like quality to it that I quite enjoy.

Pond, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, $323, framed, with free shipping.

The blue-green quality of this color is a bit hard to capture, the scanner wants to turn it blue and the camera wants to turn the white paper red, thus making the paint very green when the whites are corrected back.

Pond, detail, by Amy Crook

Pond, detail, by Amy Crook

Of course, like all my three-dimensional salt paintings, it ships tucked safely into a simple frame.

Pond, framed art by Amy Crook

Pond, framed, by Amy Crook, $323

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
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New Leaf

Posted on November 3rd, 2011

New Leaf, decorative art by Amy Crook

New Leaf by Amy Crook

A lot of the time I resist the urge to make things pretty and decorative, so with this piece I let myself make smooth, lovely progressions of shapes and colors all I wanted. I was experimenting with salt on a new paper, which turned out to be a bit too absorbent to make formations, but still left sparkly pools of color. Then I got my awesome new Japanese gouache-like paints out (watercolors, but opaque!) and just noodled about with two shades of green and a series of shapes and patterns.

Although the scanner tends to shift it to yellow, the lighter parts of this painting are a vivid new-leaf green, and the whole thing has a lovely rough, hand-torn edge. I’m thinking of framing it with photo corners on black mat board to bring out the roughness around the edges of the otherwise smooth, decorative shapes.

New Leaf, 8″x8″ mixed media on paper, nfs (sold).

Even my camera didn’t really like the lighter green color, but here you can see just a touch of the salt sparkle nestling amongst the matte paint and finely textured paper.

New Leaf, detail, by Amy Crook

New Leaf, detail, by Amy Crook

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
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Crayon Duckies

Posted on November 2nd, 2011

Crayon Duckies, commissioned art by Amy Crook

Crayon Duckies by Amy Crook, commission

They’re not quite weebles, but every once in a while I get to do something so awesome for a client I can’t help but share. These were drawn with actual crayons for a client’s promotion involving dressed-up Halloween rubber duckies. Illustration clients ftw!

Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
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