Archive for the ‘Abstract and Just Plain Weird’ Category
Time is Escaping
Monday, April 4th, 2022
Time is Escaping, 12″x24″ mixed media on paper
This piece has been through a number of transformations, starting with a very pink wash of rhodonite and ending with a spattering of metallic watercolor. There’s both mineral and synthetic pigments, watercolor and acrylic paints, and a variety of techniques in this big, beautiful work of art.
Larger than my usual (two feet tall — Trotsky for scale!), this painting would add shine and color to any space. It’s a gorgeous statement piece, a mix of intense blues and purples softened by sparkle and shine, and the pearly sheen of genuine black tourmaline.
Time is Escaping, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up of all the gorgeous texture in the central spiral. Below, you can see the swirls and dots of the lower portion of the painting, as lit by actual spring sun!
Time is Escaping, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery
Tags: iridescent, metallic, nfs, primatek, soft body acrylic, sold, vortices, watercolor
Concentric 11
Saturday, April 2nd, 2022
Concentric 11, 5″x5″ watercolor on black paper by Amy Crook
The soft black Arches paper, originally created for printmaking, makes a gorgeous charcoal surface to use with metallic watercolor.
Blue and gold spirals made a soft layer on which to build the concentric shapes, which stick to the palette and come in many shades of blue, gold, and silver. There’s even a few that mix the blue and gold to make soft greens, and one that fades into warm coppery golds from a nearly-silver center.
This shining painting is just the right size to bring some beauty to a little corner of of your desk, a tiny hidden bit of wall, or to nestle among some books on a shelf.
Concentric 11, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can really see the colors of the dot pattern as they flow one into another, and the hints of spirals hiding beneath the bursts of metallic shine. Below, this small painting is in a temporary frame, just waiting to come live on your desk and give you some good good dopamine throughout the day.
Concentric 11, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Series and Books
Tags: black paper, concentric, duochrome, iridescent, metallic, more cowbell, nfs, sold, watercolor
November 2021 Patreon Sketches
Thursday, March 3rd, 2022
And here is November! As you can see, some of these got done in January, but I am, in fact, currently caught up, so go me! These days I need extras for my Snow Leopards and Voidcats that don’t make requests, so everyone gets some fun art in their swag mailings. We’ll see how long those quarterly packets last, but the first one was a success!
From the top left:
- random night scene with Copics on Yupo
- “spice coffee” for Jefferson
- another random night scene with watercolor on black paper
- a variation on concentrics with white gouache on sparkly watercolor
- “autumn eeveeon” for Eric
- blobcat ft Trotsky’s liquid bones
- “tyrannical threes” for Rey & Amber
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Completed Commissions, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: aceo, copic marker, eric, iridescent, jeff, patreon, pen and ink, rey, watercolor, where the wild things are, yupo
2021 48-hour Sketch Card Weekend
Thursday, February 24th, 2022
48 hours, 24 sketch cards
It’s all Danielle Corsetto’s fault.
The bright young perky things of comics do an annual 24hr comic, but Danielle is also moving into the Old and Tired phase of life and wanted a little more space, and also to expand the challenge to non-comics people. So, her version was to take the weekend, 48 hours, and do 24 of something — I chose sketch cards! And I actually did it, which was pretty awesome.
A lot of these are catch-up for the previous months on Patreon, from which I owed oh so many cards, but also just doing some for the heck of it.
You can see all the original posts here on Patreon, they’re public and have tired commentary to go with them: https://www.patreon.com/amysnotdeadyet/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=48hcw
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
First batch, all marker all the time. From top left:
- Corinne wanted a tiktok memed into Stuckony, lol
- Amber asked for “backyard kiddie pool” and oops got a kitty pool
- Rey asked for “Science Says Chill” and got his fancy word art
- And some lineless, sketchless halloween candy for feeding my own heart!
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
Second batch, playing with Copic markers and ink on Yupo substrate. From the top left:
- abstract play with liquid ink directly onto paper, no pen required
- spooky ghost
- skull with a crown
- goldfishy!
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
Markers, pencils, and your artist getting tired. From top left:
- Amy B asked for “summer witch vibes” and got this homage to Goths in Hot Weather (sold)
- Jeff asked for Print Nightmare, which is apparently a real Windows exploit, because of course it is (sold)
- Jeff ALSO asked for Roy Kent, which was honestly a fucking delight (sold)
- Deandra asked for something from To Hive & To Hold, and I did a scribbly pencil sketch of Meadowsweet snoozing on Arthur
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
Day 2, switching media. Watercolor! From the top left:
- Bucky with tats, gift art for a Halloween thing (which is why this post is locked)
- a mixed media abstract that i started yesterday and finished today
- magic wands for Eric (sold)
- fishy!
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
A trio of trees and a very special birb against the moon. Who’s that Pokémon?
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
Last ones! From the top left:
- blobcat for the end, because two others are drying overnight for finishing later
- purple abstract, because I can
- Eric asked for “salt” and got this almost-dry abstract in his favorite blue & gold
- Fairytale Sky! Remember that series? Have another.
I took pics when I started each say… as you can see watercolor day is a lot more involved.
Batching them in fours and taking a lot of breaks really helped, and man could I tell I’d been doing my physical therapy. My neck was almost not mad about it at the end, and is basically healed other than the ongoing problems from my terrible art gremlin posture. I have managed to somehow loosen my right shoulder in its socket, however, so I’m back in PT starting this week. Yay? I also took a bunch of breaks on watercolor day to help Dan dye his hair blue, and we ran out of gloves so I had one very blue hand by the end, haha.
Thanks for coming along on the journey belatedly with me!
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Completed Commissions, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Nudes and Other Sexy Things, People, Figures and Faces, Pretty Words, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: aceo, amy b, black paper, brush and ink, bucky barnes, captain america, cat, copic marker, corinne, eric, fairytale sky, ghost, halloween, jefferson, mcu, patreon, pen and ink, rey, roy kent, skull, ted lasso, tree, watercolor, word art
Summer 2021 Patreon Sketches
Monday, February 21st, 2022
Sketch cards galore! I have so many that I haven’t posted here, sorry. Last year was full of overwhelm and catch-up and madness, and I’m finally starting to organize things back into a system I can function with.
These little baseball-card-sized sketches are called ACEO (artist card edition only) or sometimes ATC (artist trading card) if being traded around. I standardized all my sketches for Patreon supporters to this size, and it’s made life much easier for me in terms of starting friction. I have all the stuff to start sketching in one little pouch!
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
From the top left:
- Kim wanted to say no to summer, so she gets images of winter, instead!
- the abstract dreams of a dying Medusa is for nobody in particular
- Rebecca S wanted something for Pride, and gets this rainbow of DiversiTea
- Eric wanted some beetroot and got some fun watercolor on Yupo substrate
ACEO sketch cards by Amy Crook
From top down:
- Amber asked for Time Flies
- Jeff asked for “i can’t even right now”
- Eric asked for the One Ring
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Completed Commissions, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Pretty Words, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: aceo, acrylic ink, black paper, eric, gay pride, iridescent, kim, patreon, rebecca s, sharpie marker, watercolor, yupo
Concentric 12
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
Concentric 12, 8″x8″ watercolor on paper
Looking into the white-yellow-orange glare of this highly saturated painting, I was compelled to add some lens flare in an oceanic blue iridescent paint. It’s less chaotic than the usual bursts of Concentric color, but has the same feeling of circles around circles that gives the series its name.
I used a smoother watercolor paper on this one so that all the texture is from the paint itself, brush strokes adding depth to the white-hot glow of the center.
Concentric 12, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the brush-stroke face to the white-hot center, and the sparkle of concentric dots forming an offset lens flare shape. Below, the painting is framed and waiting to be shipped off to its new owner.
Concentric 12, framed art by Amy Crook
It’s new! It’s orange.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Series and Books
Tags: concentric, duochrome, nfs, orange, sold, watercolor
The Sight of the Stars
Thursday, July 22nd, 2021
The Sight of the Stars, 8″x10″ mixed media on metallic paper
Metallic photo paper makes a fascinating substrate, you can’t ever lift color once it’s put down. Instead, all the texture here is physical, soft body acrylic that rises above the paper in bumps and ridges formed by the brush strokes. On top of that a scattering of iridescent watercolor stars adds to the shine that already comes through the semi-translucent paint.
“The sight of the stars makes me dream.”
-Vincent Van Gogh
Sometimes I start an Aglow painting with words in mind, and sometimes I create the image and find words that go with it. I think this was the latter, but time is meaningless here in 2021 so who knows.
The Sight of the Stars, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up of the textured paint and shiny paper catching the golden light overhead. Below, the painting is in a frame, waiting to be shipped off to its new home!
The Sight of the Stars, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Pretty Words, Series and Books
Tags: acrylic, aglow, blue, inkjet print, metallic paper, more cowbell, nfs, purple, soft body acrylic, sold, van gogh
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