Archive for the ‘Abstract and Just Plain Weird’ Category
Patterns of Flow
Tuesday, January 6th, 2015
Patterns of Flow by Amy Crook
This delicately monochrome abstract watercolor is full of tiny textural details that come together to form a larger flow, like a map of a river’s course.
The colors range from deep purple to pale periwinkle, with a matte softness to the lighter areas that helps distinguish them from the shine of the darker ones. There’s little splashes outside of the uneven, painterly border, which add a touch of whimsy. The color is represented most accurately in the framed photo.
This painting is very meditative, something you can use to calm your mind for a few minutes when it’s racing too much to get into flow with your own work or art.
Patterns of Flow, 8″x8″ Japanese watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Patterns of Flow, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up of the soft, chalky surface of the painting and the mesmerizing details hiding in the color. Below, you can see the piece in a frame, just waiting to bring some beauty to your wall.
Patterns of Flow, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery
Tags: for sale, japanese watercolor, purple, violet, watercolor
Ignite
Friday, January 2nd, 2015
Ignite by Amy Crook
Some fireworks to start off 2015!
This is the third in my Aglow series, taking the hues completely away from purple and black and setting them alight.
I want this painting to inspire you to coax the spark of hope and creativity in yourself to a proper bright bonfire. Ignite your passions, ignite your career, ignite yourself.
Ignite, 8″x8″ watercolor and duochrome watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Ignite, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the rich red with the gorgeous metallic word both catching the sunlight and looking like they’re on fire. Below, you can see the piece in a frame, with perhaps the most accurate colors of the three images.
Ignite, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Series and Books
Tags: aglow, calligraphy, fire, for sale, gold, metallic, orange, red, watercolor, yellow
Christmas Unwrapped
Monday, December 8th, 2014
Christmas Unwrapped by Amy Crook
This piece feels like a Christmas tree, with green branches and splashes of red for garland, metallic splotches in gold, silver, and green for balls or lights. Nothing concrete, just a slice of an abstraction of a tree, but it gets that holiday cheer right out in the open nonetheless.
The paper is a thickly textured cream, almost a pale yellow, and the paint for the branches is actually called “Christmas Tree Green” and scented with pine, though the scent fades when the paint dries. There’s a border of sorts, but the image refuses to let boundaries contain its holiday joy.
Christmas Unwrapped, 10″x8″ duochrome, interference, and pine-scented watercolor on watercolor paper.
Christmas Unwrapped, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the brightness of the green and gold ‘ornaments’ glowing against the warm cream of the paper. Below, you can see the piece in a frame, bringing some Christmas Cheer to my apartment.
Christmas Unwrapped, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Card Design, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: christmas, duochrome, iridescent watercolor, nfs, sold, watercolor
Puddle
Friday, December 5th, 2014
Puddle by Amy Crook
This piece was inspired by an Instagram photo I took of a puddle in the rain, hiding under a ledge so my phone wouldn’t get wet. I couldn’t ever get the whole puddle to show all the concentric rings coming off the drops, because the angle of the light washed everything out so you only saw the rings in a little slice from an angle.
So I created this dusky, desaturated blue “puddle” that has surprising rings around the “droplets” when you tilt it into the sun (which washes the whole thing even bluer). The interference blue is basically invisible until light catches it, and then this beautiful pattern of overlapping waves appears.
Puddle, 8″x8″ watercolor and interference watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Puddle, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the sunlight has washed this photo bright blue, but also brought out the nearly-invisible rings around each ‘droplet.’ I handed this painting to a friend and he said it was, “like being handed an actual puddle.” Below, you can see it tucked into a frame, a bit of puddle-wonderful that will never dry up.
Puddle, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: blue, interference, nfs, rain, watercolor
Kelp
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014
Kelp by Amy Crook
Ah, the foibles of subtle art and electronic reproduction. The monitor tries to wash out this painting into cyan or acid green, but don’t let it fool you, there is a gorgeous seafoam green color to these rising strands. It has a very subtle feeling of being underwater somewhere brightly sunlit, so that the water is washed to white and the kelp glows from within, with only the densest leaves showing darker greens.
This painting is a dreamy abstract watercolor that gives a sense of weightlessness, of drifting slowly upward with a slight sway from some hidden current.
Much like its spiritual relatives, Winter and Midnight, I could stare at it for hours and still find new little details hiding among the pale splashes of paint.
Kelp, 8″x8″ watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Kelp, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see some of the subtle details that get washed out in the scan. The color in that photo comes out a little too green, but you can get a better feel of how soft and peaceful it is. Below, the sunlight streams in on this piece in its dark frame.
Kelp, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, pathways, water, watercolor
Dark Scottish Loch
Thursday, November 6th, 2014
Dark Scottish Loch by Amy Crook
Many miles away
Something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark Scottish loch
There is a very subtle shimmer of amethysts in the water at the center of this painting, another in my series of maps to nowhere. The rich mineral-based paints give very understated, muted colors, with only that tiny bit of shimmer to add lightness. I outlined the ‘loch’ with Sharpie marker, and named it after the above lyrics from The Police’s Synchronicity II.
There’s even a hint of monsters in the gorgeous texture of the lake, a suggestion of something lurking in the forest surrounding it as well. A shadow on the door of your mind.
Dark Scottish Loch, 10″x8″ Sharpie marker and Primatek watercolorn on archival paper.
Dark Scottish Loch, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the amethyst paint shimmers ever so subtly in the dark waters of the loch. Below, you can see the painting in a frame, suggesting at secrets to be found at the bottom of things.
Dark Scottish Loch, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, map, primatek, watercolor
Atmosphere
Tuesday, November 4th, 2014
Atmosphere by Amy Crook
This makes me think of a strange, swirling planet flinging its atmosphere off into the void, or perhaps stealing the blue-violet outer ring of gases from somewhere else. The thin middle ring of blue is hard to spot in the scan, but you can see it in the detail photo quite well, and it’s very obvious in person. The color reminded me very distinctly of photos of the earth’s atmosphere, that thin layer that keeps us all alive, which is where the piece gets its title. The spiralling planet itself is a color-changing paint that goes from reddish copper to a warm golden bronze, while the outside runs through blues and purples depending on the angle of the light.
Atmosphere, 5″x5″ duochrome watercolor on Arches cover black paper.
Atmosphere, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the thin blue shining out from between lavender and copper. Below, it’s in a frame, hanging out with my old glasses for scale.
Atmosphere, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery
Tags: black paper, duochrome, for sale, iridescent watercolor, watercolor
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