Zombie: Wait Up!
Posted on October 29th, 2010
Zombie: Wait Up! by Amy Crook
This cheerful guy is one of the bonus zombies in my Cthulhu Coloring Book — I think he’s a little stuck and wants his zombie pals to wait up while he finishes struggling his way up out of the grave in search for delicious, tasty brains.
I’ve colored him here with a ghoulish green, though I think he’d do just fine in deathly grey or a rotting pink, as well. One nice thing about this one was that the style was so loose and scribbly, it was easy to color without worrying too much about staying inside the lines.
Zombie: Wait Up!, 5″x7″ pen and ink and Copic markers on watercolor paper.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring book, copic marker, for sale, pen and ink, zombie
1 Comment »
Potato Fairy
Posted on October 28th, 2010
Potato Fairy by Amy Crook
When I first started making my own holiday cards, I carved stamps from potatoes, mushrooms, and sponges, and painstakingly hand-stamped dozens of cards — one year I sent nearly 100 cards out! I’ve since graduated to doing one original and printing the cards from that, though I still sometimes add a bit of hand-painted flair to personal cards.
This was the test print for one year’s cards, done using watercolors (including metallics) painted onto those rough handmade stamps. I chose the crouching fairy, though as I recall the cards didn’t get the mushroom-stamped object he’s crouching in front of. I was experimenting with different methods for making the wings, so there’s some extra texture added as well, in metallic gold, red-violet and softly brushed-on blue-green.
Potato Fairy, 9″x12″ watercolor on sketchbook paper, not for sale.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books
Tags: fairy, holidays, nfs, potato stamp, watercolor
Weeble Wednesday: Cthulhu has a Coloring Book!
Posted on October 27th, 2010
Cthulhu Coloring Book by Amy Crook
Encouraged by the success of my Lovecraft-themed greeting cards on Etsy, I decided to up the ante this season and make a whole coloring book! There’s a few weebles you’ve already seen, and a bunch you haven’t — I even did a whole new Cthulhu for the cover (plus he’s on page 1 for your coloring pleasure).
There’s a whole bunch of adorably creepy creatures from the stories of HP Lovecraft and the other authors who’ve played in his Mythos over the years, plus a small mob of bonus Zombies.
You can get the Cthulhu Coloring Book on Etsy, either as a pdf or a printed book.
Weeble Cthulhu 2 by Amy Crook
You see what he has to put up with?
Weeble Cthulhu 2, 5″x7″ pen and ink and Copic markers on watercolor paper, not for sale.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring book, copic marker, cthulhu, etsy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, weeble
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Sunset
Posted on October 26th, 2010
Sunset by Amy Crook
Over a decade of doing the Starcycles Calendar off and on, I’ve gotten to create a variety of gorgeous art. In 2003, we tried out a wall calendar format, and I created this simple drawing using pastels on rich midnight blue paper. The drawing is very loose and I’ve always liked the way everything in the sky is reflected in the vast ocean below.
Sunset, 22.5″x19″ pastel on colored pastel paper
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, pastel, starcycles
Recipe: Rice Pudding
Posted on October 25th, 2010
Like all of my other recipes, this one is adapted from somewhere else, but I’ve been making it for so long I have no idea where anymore.
3 c. cooked rice (I use jasmine rice because that’s what I use for everything, heh)
3 c. milk
2/3 c. sugar (I find raw sugar gives it a richer flavor)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon, ginger and cardamon
dash nutmeg & cloves
1/2 c. raisins (if you add more than this, add more milk to compensate)
2 Tbl. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine everything but the vanilla in a good-sized saucepan and cook on medium heat for ~25 minutes, or until it’s just starting to thicken, definitely thinner than you want for serving. Stir occasionally, and keep watch once it starts to simmer to prevent boilovers and messy stoves, not to mention scorched milk.
Remove from heat, add vanilla, let cool. Eat hot or cold, though I prefer it warm. It’ll completely solidify in the fridge, just stir in some milk if you want to thin it out for eating later.
Categories: Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange, Words Words Words
Tags: food, nfs, recipe, sharpie marker
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Molten Sky
Posted on October 23rd, 2010
Molten Sky by Amy Crook
This painting was inspired by Roger Zelazny’s Amber series, in a roundabout way. In it he postulates a continuum of realities from the Pattern of Order at Amber to the Courts of Chaos at the other end, with the realities becoming stranger and more dangerous as they get closer to Chaos. I imagined a world where the sky had cracked open one night, its rough-velvet texture tearing down the middle and letting molten gold spill forth, sparking and changing and becoming like stars as it spread across the sky. I tried to capture that sense of motion, of chaos, with the three metallic colors of droplets (gold, bronze and a scarab red that shimmers and changes to old-bronze-green at certain angles).
This painting goes strangely well with my decor, when I hang it on the one darker golden accent wall the gold paint blends beautifully, while still stands out more on the lighter wheat-gold of the rest of the apartment. I keep wanting to frame it with an old window frame, so that it looks like you’re staring out a window at the glowing fissure in the sky.
Molten Sky, oil on canvas, 24″x24″, $999 with free shipping.
Categories: Daily Art
Tags: amber
2 Comments »
Dancing on Glass
Posted on October 22nd, 2010
Dancing on Glass by Amy Crook
This is another piece from about the same era — I got into a phase where I was painting with acrylics on shards of broken glass. Surprisingly, I didn’t cut myself nearly as much as you might think. You can see the same fascination with dancers, though — I’ve always been pleased with the feeling of grace in this piece.
I never did figure out a good way to display any of these pieces, though, and I’m not sure I even still have them. If I recall correctly, this one’s about the size of a 3″x5″ index card, and the background is literally painted on the back side of the glass, with the figure floating a few millimeters above it on her own surface.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: acrylics, glass, nfs
2 Comments »
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