Green Salt Pools
Posted on June 3rd, 2011
Green Salt Pools by Amy Crook
This time I used small chips of salt inside tiny, tight spirals of bright green pen, and put a scant drop of water atop each one. I got small, dense pools of dried salt, almost all of which had a central crystal as well as the border of salt that always forms. This pen came out a pale, yellow-green when it was diluted into the salt, and just like the blue and gold earlier this week, the ink dissolved into the solution completely.
The green in the background is dark and bluish, but the rings around each little salt formation are a brighter green, from the dark shadowy forest to the rich green of leaves overhead to the bright new-leaf green of the salt growth.
Green Salt Pools, 7″x5″ salt, pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, $299 framed, with free shipping.
This picture gives you a better feel for the color and texture of the piece:
Green Salt Pools, detail, by Amy Crook
And here you can see it tucked safe in its frame:
Green Salt Pools, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, green, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
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Blue Salt Pools
Posted on June 2nd, 2011
Blue Salt Pools by Amy Crook
I’ve been experimenting more with these salt pieces,using different inks to make the original drawings, more or less salt or water to make the pools, and different patterns and colors of watercolor along with them (and even one with no watercolor at all). This one uses a watered-down midnight blue to go with the lighter blue salt pools, and you can see one where the ink really permeated the salt and gave it almost an electric blue feel. Overall I really like the way this one came out, with the color gathering the darkest where the paint brushed along the outer edges of the salt crystals.
Blue Salt Pools, 7″x5″ salt and watercolor on watercolor paper, $299 framed, with free shipping.
I always feel like the scans, while technically accurate, don’t really capture the sparkly, dynamic, three-dimensional feel of these pieces. The salt grows onto the paper, crystallizing with the color from the ink to create these textured alien landscapes, and no photo or scan can ever quite convey that.
Blue Salt Pools, detail, by Amy Crook
It will ship tucked safely in its frame, so you don’t have to worry about anything untoward happening to it in transit.
Blue Salt Pools, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: blue, for sale, salt, watercolor
3 Comments »
Thanks for the Sketches!
Posted on June 1st, 2011
My little sketch sale was a success – I had a lot of fun doing a bunch of quickie art pieces, and I still have two left to go. I even sold most of the sample pieces I did, so I’m quite pleased overall. If you missed it, there’ll likely be a repeat again around the holidays. I’ve been told they make lovely gifts.
Snape sketch by Amy Crook (sold)
Sphinx sketch by Amy Crook (sold)
King's Speech sketch by Amy Crook (sold)
Thanks again to everyone who participated, whether by looking, buying, Tweeting or replying!
Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: commissions, kings speech, nfs, sketch sale, snape
Tentacle Deeps 13
Posted on May 31st, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 13 by Amy Crook
And so we come to the end of a series! 13 Tentacle Deeps seemed like enough, a good stopping point before I got bored with the idea altogether. I’ve really enjoyed having the structure there to experiment with materials, watercolor and salt, pen and ink, different papers and techniques.
This last installment in the series started with a very dark wash of mixed black and green and a little blue, which settled out at the bottom in an interesting root-like formation when it dried. I chose to grow the tentacles out of the top of the roots rather than cover them up, and then added simple table salt to give a little bit of sparkle and texture to the image. The paper is one of the handmade postcards I bought ages ago, rough and off-white and not really a proper rectangle, which gives the piece a wonderful texture.
Tentacle Deeps 13, 4″x6″ watercolor and salt.
I’ve also made an iPhone wallpaper and computer wallpaper out of this one to celebrate the end of the series. Enjoy!
Tentacle Deeps 13, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, green, salt, teal, tentacle deeps, watercolor
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Golden Pools
Posted on May 30th, 2011
Golden Pools by Amy Crook
When I started this piece, I’m sure I had intentions of doing something else once the water dried and salt spots formed, but the end result was so serene, I decided to keep it as is. It’s so subtle that my scanner did a terrible job with it, actually, so I had to take a photograph instead.
Golden Pools, 5.5″x4.25″ pen, ink and salt on card.
This is what it looked like early on, when the salt had mostly dissolved but the water hadn’t pulled all of the ink out of the paper yet, so you can still see the orangey-gold spirals faintly inside each drop:
Golden Pools, in progress, by Amy Crook
You can see how the one droplet slipped up over the embossed edge of the card, even though I tried to keep it away. The resultant pool of golden salt stayed in the same spot, gently breaking the borders of the piece:
Golden Pools, detail, by Amy Crook
This last photo encompasses the feeling of the piece for me, the depth and detail that’s hiding in the minimalist presentation:
Golden Pools by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: ink, salt
1 Comment »
Radiation Spill
Posted on May 27th, 2011
Radiation Spill by Amy Crook
I couldn’t resist a punny title for this piece, after everything that went into making it. I was working away on doing the darker pen-and-ink shading in the background of the tea circle with a quill dip-pen and bottle of ink when I smacked the bottle and dumped it onto the drawing, the table, and a bit on myself. Fortunately I salvaged all three — the tablecloth kept it off the carpet, my pyjamas are none the worse for being a bit inky, and the piece, as you can see, took on a different quality afterward.
I put some salt crystals in the ink pool just to see what happened, and then once it was all dry I finished with the parallel lines radiating out from the salt-encrusted portions of the tea circle. Then, I got a metallic gold colored pencil to put in radial lines coming out from the lighter pool of tea, half-erasing them to give a subtle, distressed feel. One of the things I really like about the quill-and-ink section is that the metal nib actually scratches into the paper, so you can still see the texture of the lines even in the big pool of ink.
I think the final effect is of something rising up over hills, the sun half-under a cloud perhaps, or some alien moon somewhere.
Radiation Spill, 5″x7″ mixed media on watercolor paper, $129 with free shipping.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: colored pencil, for sale, pen and ink, salt, tea
Tender Planet
Posted on May 26th, 2011
Tender Planet by Amy Crook
This piece of art was created with theoretically edible ingredients, except of course for the paper. Of course, the tea had been sitting in a dish on my shelf for two days when I made this, so I’m not sure I’d want to have drunk it at that point, but it’s the thought that counts.
I let the tea puddle and gather on the page, and once it started to dry, I moved the tea-soaked salt crystals off the pool in the middle and onto the white page around it. I added a tiny drop of extra tea to the each salt crystal to make a series of satellites around the central circle. The tea had managed to change from when it was fresh-brewed, and a sediment settled out in the denser parts giving it a rough look like a shadow on the surface of a moon or planet. The crystals were brushed gently off once the piece was completely dry, to leave this final image that suggested its name to me the moment I saw it completed.
I think this is my favorite so far of the tea experiments, actually, I love the organic feel of it, nature creating art with only a little bit of human intervention. The slightly larger page size gives the image room to float in the middle like a planet sending its child satellites out to explore space, but not too far just yet.
Tender Planet, 7″x7″ tea and salt on Arches cover white paper.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, planet, salt, tea
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