Archive for the ‘Abstract and Just Plain Weird’ Category
Pattern Recognition
Friday, March 30th, 2012
Pattern Recognition, abstract art by Amy Crook
This piece started out as tiny bead-like droplets of salt-infused ink on the paper. The salt crystals that grew were small and black, evenly spaced across the ink circles, and the ink was actually coating the salt so they hardly sparkled at all. I took a wet brush and idly doodled the uppermost right-hand pattern by re-wetting the ink and drawing it out in three long, swooping lines. Using water to separate this ink shows off its complex color structure of blue and orangey-brown, and so I used the same method to make patterns around the rest of the ink dots as well.
Since I gently dissolved some of the ink off of the salt crystals, they regained a tiny bit of sparkle, so this image that could have been boring black and white had I made it with pen and ink, has a three-dimensional, full-color palette of tiny details. Sometimes it’s worth it to do things the ridiculously complicated way.
Pattern Recognition, 5″x5.25″ ink and salt on paper, $234 framed, with free shipping.
The detail shot below shows off both the color variation in the “black” ink, and the dull shine of the tiny salt crystals. To give you a sense of scale, the entire design in this photo is about the size of a quarter.
Pattern Recognition, detail, by Amy Crook
I haven’t yet framed this piece, it’s just a tiny bit too big for a 5″x5″ frame, so it’ll get mounted into a larger 8″x8″ frame before going to its new home.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: brush and ink, for sale, ink, salt
Interfering Blues
Friday, March 23rd, 2012
Interfering Blues, abstract art by Amy Crook, $234
This is another of those pieces that’s challenging to photograph, and I totally did it to myself. I had the lovely ultramarine spirals already as a simple, elegant piece, but they sat around for weeks feeling unfinished before I got my new shiny Japanese watercolors. I used the blue from the pearlescent set to paint a second set of ghostly spirals atop the first, which are barely visible from some angles, and from others take on a lovely iridescent blue hue.
I’m definitely doing well with my new year’s resolution to paint more spirals on things, and I have to admit there’s something I find really charming about this particular set. The colors and shapes are very simple and bold, but they work for me.
Interfering Blues, 6″x6″ watercolor on paper, $234 with free shipping.
Interfering Blues, detail 1, by Amy Crook
These pieces are deeply frustrating to photograph. For instance here, the paper is really a nice bright white, but since the shine is even brighter but also blue, I can’t really color balance the way I’d like to. But, at least you can see the pale blue shine on some of the spirals at this angle!
Interfering Blues, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Above is more of a close-up of just one spiral, which captures the full range of color on the paint from a pearly warm white on the right to the shining blue on the left. This is such a nifty image I made a computer wallpaper of it, if you’d like a little more interference blue in your day.
The piece ships unframed for $234, but if you’d like me to frame it for you (or want to talk about anything, really!), feel free to email me about it.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers
Tags: blue, for sale, interference, iridescent, watercolor
In the Spiraling Blue
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
In the Spiraling Blue, abstract art by Amy Crook
This art is deceptively simple, just one color of paint on the soft, cream paper. French Ultramarine is a rich, bright blue and it mixes pretty well with the salt to give a pale blue tint to the crystals without dulling their luster. This is the last of 3 pieces I did experimenting with various shades of blue paint, and it sat around the longest, trying to figure out what else it needed.
It turns out, it just needed for me to decide it was finished.
Sometimes art is like that, there’s always the temptation to take it one step further and possibly ruin it. This sat in my shelf for a few weeks while I glanced over and considered what else I might do with it, and eventually I realized that the strong, swooping spirals were enough by themselves, especially mixed with the tiny ones at the center of each salt pool.
In the Spiraling Blue, 7″x5″ salt and watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
In the Spiraling Blue, detail 1, by Amy Crook
The camera really shows both the soft sky blue color of the salt and the way it sparkles in the sunlight. It also tends to wash the paper with slightly more yellow than it has, giving the whole thing a blue-and-gold feeling that’s more subtle in the real thing. This iPhone wallpaper shows off the real colors a little better.
In the Spiraling Blue, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers
Tags: blue, for sale, salt, spirals, watercolor
Event Horizons: Black, Blacker, Blackest
Monday, March 19th, 2012
Event Horizons: Black, Blacker, Blackest watercolor triptych by Amy Crook
I entered this triptych in the juried art auction for IMSA25, the 25th anniversary for my old high school. They wanted art with a theme of energy and innovation, and the connection of these mini black holes was enough to get in, thankfully.
I actually only had the first piece done, the white one, when I decided to enter them into the show. The idea to make them into a triptych came later, and I really think the framing on their grey backing paper was the final piece that the work needed to come together. The salt pools in all three pieces are infused with fountain pen ink, and then I used the pen to draw a circle around each pool, a little event horizon between the pool and the black halo around it.
Interestingly, the black paper absorbed the Lunar Black paint too well for it to really granulate like it does on the other two pieces, and the paint is just slightly blacker than the paper itself, which provides an interesting contrast to the other two parts of the series. The whole thing makes me think of atoms or micro black holes, something tiny and mysterious that can’t normally be seen with the naked eye.
Event Horizons: Black, Blacker, Blackest, 3-5″x7″ mixed media on paper, nfs (available at the auction only).
I’ve got one detail shot from each piece for you, anyway, just because I think they’re beautiful.
Event Horizons 1: Black, detail, by Amy Crook
Event Horizons 2: Blacker, detail, by Amy Crook
Event Horizons 3: Blackest, detail, by Amy Crook
This is my first juried show in nearly 20 years, so I was extremely nervous about entering, and very excited to get in! I just thought you should know that. Heh.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: art auction, black paper, pen and ink, salt, triptych, watercolor
Outlier
Friday, March 16th, 2012
Outlier, abstract art by Amy Crook, $399
Sometimes I can’t really explain why I like a piece of art, I just really do, and this is one of those. The scan really doesn’t do it justice, the green whorls and rays, and the purple lines joining the various salt pools. This one started with the salt pools in varying color intensities, then I put in the gel pen lines, and finally the spirals of watercolor. The watercolor picked up the glitter from the pen lines, and so there’s a subtle shimmer all through each one.
Outlier, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper, $399 framed, with free shipping.
Outlier, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above is the smallest, darkest and furthest-flung of the salt pools. There’s a little scribbled spiral of purple around just this one outlying pool, and you can see how the glitter got distributed all through the spiral of watercolor. Below, a photo of three of the other pools in a row (and that wash of red in the upper left my camera seems determined to give this paper, sigh). I made an iPhone wallpaper of a similar shot, and I’m using it for my lock screen right now. Or at least until I change my mind again.
Outlier, detail 2, by Amy Crook
I like the way it looks in a frame, too, as though everything’s pulling against the purple lines and trying to find a way to sneak out of the frame entirely, tied together by forces you can’t quite name.
Outlier, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, glitter gel pen, green, iridescent, purple, salt, watercolor
Positive Space
Friday, March 9th, 2012
Positive Space, abstract art by Amy Crook, $333
The inverse (and slightly smaller) companion to yesterday’s piece, Positive Space uses coppery paint and copper-colored glitter gel pen on black paper to create a halo of light around the spiral “stars.” I had actually created the salt pools on this one at the same time I did Monday’s Moonglow. I have two little pots of iridescent paint I got as samples, and I tend to use them on pieces at the same time, though rarely the same piece.
I liked the effect of Negative Space so much, however, that I took this work in progress and used the same technique to make a not-quite-mirror image. I like that they’re not exactly the same — the halos on this one tend to be bigger and scatter wider, and of course they’re different sizes. A bit like last week’s Spirals Trio, thematically linked but not matchy-matchy.
Positive Space, 5″x5″ mixed media on paper, $333 framed, with free shipping.
Randomly, if you ever get frustrated with the term “mixed media,” just check out the tags at the bottom of the post. I try to list all the media I’ve mixed down there.
Positive Space, detail, by Amy Crook
The sunlight reflects beautifully off the copper-toned salt, ink and paint in the detail photo, above. Below, you can see the painting with my iPhone for scale. To see it beside its friend, check out yesterday’s post.
Positive Space, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: black paper, copper, for sale, glitter gel pen, iridescent, salt, that space pair, watercolor
Negative Space
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
Negative Space, abstract art by Amy Crook, $333
I was messing about with some blue paints, trying to get them to impregnate the salt crystals better (heh), and I ended up with these 9 scattered blue pools in manganese blue hue (aka not-actually-manganese blue because real manganese blue pigment will kill you). I have a glitter gel pen in a complementary color, and I just started doodling with it around one of the pools. I’d just done a piece where the lines radiated outward (that you’ll see next week, I never said I posted them in the order I made them), and so I did a different sort of radiation.
I used to use this pattern to create a halo of sunlight against a darker blue sky, so the title came from the feeling that these were dark stars floating in a white sky somehow, radiating their negative light. I liked the idea so much I made a piece with copper on black paper, which you’ll get to see tomorrow.
Negative Space, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper, $333 with free shipping.
Negative Space, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see a close-up of the glittery gel ink and the sparkling salt pools taken in the sunlight. Below, you can see it in its frame with tomorrow’s art. I’m thinking of switching it out for a white frame to complete the contrast, we’ll see.
Negative Space and Positive Space, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: blue, for sale, glitter gel pen, salt, that space pair, watercolor
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