Sketch Sale Revisited
Posted on May 25th, 2011
Sale done! Thank you to everyone who participated and made it a success.
After a week, I’ve sold a few sketches and, as is the way of things when there’s pens and paper out ready to be used, made a few more. The sale will go on for one more week, until the end of May. If you’d like to get your very own wee little sketch from me in the mail, there’s still a bit of time.
Here’s what I’ve been up to this week. Somehow, they all turned into cute fan art, go figure.
Two little $10 sketches:

Snape and Harry sketch by Amy Crook (sold)

Harry and Draco sketch by Amy Crook
Two little $20 sketches:

Bertie and Lionel, the King’s Speech, sketch by Amy Crook (sold)

Mycroft and Sherlock, brotherly love, sketch by Amy Crook
Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Sale Post, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: draco, harry, kings speech, mycroft, pen and ink, sherlock, sketch sale, snape, watson
Red Irony
Posted on May 24th, 2011
I have a few of these little folded over pieces of thick, stiff watercolor paper just waiting for me to find something to do with them. This first one had its front painted weeks before the last of its inside panels got their decorations.
When you unfold the first panel of the little square, you get a different Zen circle and surprise tentacles:

Red Irony, detail, by Amy Crook
The inner circle is smaller and a little more broken, and the tentacles seem to be reaching for it, toward some mysterious end.
When you open it further you find that the tentacles are now reaching for a mysterious blue-black circle of paint, accompanied by an appropriate Lovecraft quote.
From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.
-H.P. Lovecraft
The starting F has been decorated with twining red tentacles, this panel done with pen and ink in matching shades of blue-black and blood red, rather than watercolor like the rest of the piece.
Red Irony, 10″x4.25″ watercolor and pen and ink on watercolor paper.
This piece is unframed, and really is more suited to standing snuggled up with old books where it can surprise the unwary, and hopefully make them smile at its odd message. The paper is quite stiff and the materials archival, so it should be able to withstand a bit of wear and tear, though I’d still keep it out of reach of little fingers.
For completion, here’s what the back of the piece looks like, though I may add a signature to the blank back panel before it gets slipped away into storage with the rest of my watercolor pieces.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: calligraphy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, red, tentacles, watercolor, zen circle
Work in Progress: Dragon Skin
Posted on May 23rd, 2011

Dragon, commission in progress, by Amy Crook
Just a little work in progress today, a teaser of the textured skin on Molly’s oil-painted dragon. It’s taken ages to get even this far, since I have to let the thick scales dry between painting sessions or I just smear them when I’m working elsewhere, and I still have his hoard, the details on the forest, and even his face to finish. Or is it a her, in the rich warm purples and blues? The paint I’m using is iridescent, which makes the whole dragon shine on the canvas, especially with the extra physical texture of the impasto.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Works In Progress
Tags: commission, iridescent, nfs, oil painting, wip
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Puppy Love
Posted on May 20th, 2011

Puppy Love by Amy Crook
This cute little guy is one of the tea experiments I posted last Friday. Rather than watercolor, I made the wash with strong black tea, and then enhanced it with a brown fountain pen and, you guessed it, more tea. The shape that the tea left when it dried suggested a puppy to me, so I played a little bit with the pen and brush and eventually got something I was happy with.
The end result is warm and whimsical, just the perfect thing for a dog lover.
Puppy Love, 7″x5″ pen & ink and tea on paper.
Categories: Daily Art, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: nfs, pen and ink, puppy, sold, tea, whimsy
Eye of the Moon
Posted on May 19th, 2011

Eye of the Moon by Amy Crook
The same day I did the tea washes, I did a few watercolor washes as well, just simple pale circles to do something with later. When I took this one back out the other night, it reminded me of an eye, but also of a pale, cool moon floating in its own gentle glow. The paper around the circle is a bit warped, giving it a touch of subtle halo, which you can just barely see in the image above.
I used the same crosshatch pattern as I did with Blood Moon, only this time I used a deep blue-black rather than the bright red. Instead of adding texture with a contrasting color of ink, I put an abstractly slitted pupil into the center of the white “eye” that gave the whole image an ornate feeling. The high contrast between background and foreground gives this piece much more deliberateness, and this thinner sketchbook paper also held the ink better, with less bleeding.
Eye of the Moon, 7″x5″ watercolor and pen & ink on paper.
I took a progress shot with my iPhone right after I started, so you can see the texture on the wash without the interference of the pattern.

Eye of the Moon, work in progress by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: blue, crosshatching, eye, for sale, moon, pen and ink, watercolor
Sketches and Sales and Sherlocks, Oh My!
Posted on May 18th, 2011
Sale done, thank you to all who participated!
I’m doing a sale! Until the end of May, if you’d like to get just a wee little sketch from me in the mail, you can.
This is the sort of thing you can get for $5:
One figure, sketchy style!

Fluffed-Up Wren sketch by Amy Crook

John Watson sketch by Amy Crook
This is the sort of thing you can get for $10:
One figure, with more detail & shading:

Snape sketch by Amy Crook (sold)
Or two figures, sketchy style. No, they don’t have to be cutesy. What?

John and Sherlock sketch by Amy Crook (sold)
This is the sort of thing you can get for $20:
Two figures, with more detail & shading:

Aziraphale and Crowley sketch by Amy Crook (sold)
Thanks!
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Sale Post, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: good omens, pen and ink, sherlock, sketch sale, snape, watson, wings, wren
Tentacle Deeps 12
Posted on May 17th, 2011

Tentacle Deeps 12 by Amy Crook
I think I may be just about done with the tentacle series, so in a few weeks I’ll have to think of something else to do with my Tuesdays.
This one got two layers of washes, one darker than the other, so I decided to keep the tentacles themselves to a single, matte black layer, contained entirely within the darker wash, at least at the bottom. One of them does break out of the top, as tentacles are wont to do. The rich colors of this were lost somewhat in the scanning process (I do seem to say that a lot, don’t I?), but this handmade (not by me, though) postcard looks great in a simple black frame.
Tentacle Deeps 12, 4″x6″ watercolor on handmade postcard.

Tentacle Deeps 12, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, tentacle deeps, turquoise, watercolor
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