Box of Envy
Posted on March 3rd, 2011
Box of Envy by Amy Crook
I was torn for what to call this experimental little watercolor piece, so I poked around quote sites until I found a Shakespearian insult from Troilus and Cressida, “Thou damnable box of envy.” I liked the way the metaphor fit with the one I’d created, especially mixed with the shades of green from teal to chartreuse that permeate the image.
Box of Envy, 6″x4.25″ watercolor on handmade watercolor postcard.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, postcard, watercolor
Weeble Wednesday: Dancing Skeleton
Posted on March 2nd, 2011
Dancing Skeleton by Amy Crook
This little guy is a sketch I did during a slow moment when I was having a “Meet the Artist” day last month. My window at the Book Shop is down now, but this funky little guy lives on.
Categories: Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: nfs, pen and ink, weeble
Tentacle Deeps 3
Posted on March 1st, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 3 by Amy Crook
It’s officially a series now because there’s 3 of them, so I gave them their own tag. I’ve made up some more blanks for different ones, greens and reds, so expect a few more before I get tired of painting them.
This one was a different sort of paper, recycled watercolor greeting cards, and I painted over the faint image with rich, opaque Japanese sumi-e inks. I let the paper mostly dry, and then made a mixture of black and green. Between the paper and the wetness of the inks, the tentacles tended to pick up on the color beneath more than the previous two pieces, giving them a faded feeling. I also shaded the paint using blue-violet to blue-green from left to right rather than vertically shading from light to dark, and covered the whole page rather than leaving a white border, so the whole piece has a slightly different feel to it than the others.
Tentacle Deeps 3, 5″x7″ ink and watercolor on watercolor paper.
I also made another computer wallpaper and iPhone wallpaper for this one — please let me know if you download them.
Tentacle Deeps 3, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: blue, for sale, iphone, tentacle deeps, wallpaper, watercolor
Blood Moon
Posted on February 28th, 2011
Blood Moon by Amy Crook
Tonight I got out some watercolor paper and my paints and sat down to just play. I painted a number of washes for future use. This red-pink circle had dried just enough that, once the paints were put away, I sat with a red fountain pen and just started shading. Once I’d put in a small section of red on red, I started to see the moon shape forming, so I finished it up deliberately. Then, at the end, I took a darker red pen and put in the little spirals, over the places I’d dripped in a bit of blue-black when the wash was still wet.
I used a simpler texture than the one from my Texture Experiment 1, which let the work go faster and less precisely. In general, however, I’m finding a heretofore-unknown penchant for obsessive detail and crosshatching. I must be maturing; the last time I tried it with etching, I hated the fine, tedious work.
Blood Moon, 5″x5″ watercolor, pen and ink on reused watercolor paper, sold.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: blood moon, crosshatching, moon, nfs, pen and ink, sold, spiral, watercolor
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Unreal Angel
Posted on February 26th, 2011
Unreal Angel by Amy Crook
I’ve had this painting for a while now, but I was never quite happy with certain details in it, so today when I was painting I pulled it out and mixed up a soft, warm gold and brought the too-subtle wings into fuller being. They’re still translucent and only half-realized at best, but much easier to see.
Unreal Angel, 12″x16″ pastel and oil paint on canvas board.
I also added a sort of secret detail; I got out my duochrome aquamarine and gave him a gently-blended halo that you can only see from some angles — in photos, it only showed up with the flash on.
Categories: Floating Gallery
Tags: angel, canvas board, for sale, oil painting, pastel
Victorian Wallpaper
Posted on February 25th, 2011
Victorian Wallpaper 1 by Amy Crook
After doing my hatboxes for the window display, and reading way too much Edward Gorey and Arthur Conan Doyle, I’ve been itching to try my hand at a Victorian-style wallpaper pattern. This is my first attempt, a little wonky but I like the way my scribbled inks work with the ornate scrollwork. Below I’ve done a few mock-ups of what it might look like in different color patterns. Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: pen and ink, wallpaper
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S is for Sherlock
Posted on February 24th, 2011
S is for Sherlock by Amy Crook
Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies is my absolute favourite of works — I get to die first, after all — and so when I was experimenting with my Micron pens the urge to parody BBC’s new Sherlock by mashing up the two was irresistible.
Click the image if you’d like to really see the ridiculously obsessive line work, or just enjoy the smaller version where it all blends into a texture.
I decided to combine the pose from “S is for Susan who perished of fits” and the caption and setting from “N is for Neville who died of ennui” in order to capture the essence of modern Sherlock in his state of utter boredom. The window isn’t precisely true to the show (there’s an ornate railing of some kind outside, and curtains), but I really liked the boring brickwork from the N page, so I copied that faithfully and tediously.
I never really thought I’d learn to like shading in such a time-consuming style, but I’m already thinking about other ways I can make use of it. I’ve already got plans to do a companion piece to this for poor John, since Gorey set me up so very well with “J is for James who took lye by mistake.”
S is for Sherlock who died of ennui, 8.5″x6.5″ pen and ink on sketchbook paper, sold.
You can still get the pair of them as handmade blank greeting cards on Etsy, though!
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: baker street tinies, crosshatching, edward gorey, nfs, pastiche, pen and ink, sherlock, sold
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