Archive for the ‘Abstract and Just Plain Weird’ Category

WIP: Molten Sun

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Molten Sun, WIP detail, by Amy Crook

Molten Sun, work in progress detail, by Amy Crook

After finishing Molten Sky, I hung it up in my apartment to dry, and slowly got an idea for ways to make the single idea into a series. This is the second one, also 24″ square. For a long time it looked like it had a bite out of it and made me crave Oreos, but now I’ve finally got the metallic copper, bronze and gold filled in the “bite.” I’m not quite sure how I’m going to finish it off, but for now it’s drying in the same spot the other one occupied, where I can look up and see it and contemplate.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Works In Progress
Tags: , ,

Dichotomies

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Dichotomies by Amy Crook

Dichotomies, 4″x6″ etchings on watercolor paper

This print uses two small etching plates together in composition. The large plate was a piece of the same found plate from yesterday’s art, and the small plate is one of my series of smaller plates for use in larger pieces, which you can see was inked in two different colors and printed over the darker plate. I’m more pleased with the final result on this one, I think, but I like the contrast between the two pieces.

You can see how the natural deckle edge from a larger sheet of watercolor paper forms the bottom, where the hand-torn edges give character to the other three sides. I was always a bit careless about the process of breaking down the bigger sheets, so this, like many of my prints, isn’t really a perfect rectangle.

Because of the way the composition was created out of several different hand-inked and hand-placed plates, it’s one of a kind.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: , ,

Untitled Print 1

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Untitled Print 1 by Amy Crook

Untitled Print 1, 4″x6″ etchings on watercolor paper

This print uses three small etching plates together in composition. The large plate was a bit of found art — a larger piece left behind by some other artists and cut up into intriguing shapes with no real connection to the original composition. The two smaller plates were part of a series of little, reusable etching plates I made by hand.

I have another print like this that I’ll post tomorrow, which uses a different portion of the found plate and another of the small plates in a similar manner.

Because of the way the composition was created out of several different hand-inked and hand-placed plates, it’s one of a kind.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: , ,

Reflect

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Reflect, detail, by Amy Crook

Reflect, 3″x3″ monoprint on 9″x9″ watercolor paper

This monoprint has always made me think of giant, ancient trees growing right at the edge of a pond, reflected such that it’s hard to tell where the trees end and the water begins. You might see something totally different, of course, since this is a very abstract image. I did a couple of prints with this color scheme, I’ll try to post the other one tomorrow or next week. Actually, I used to dye my hair both of those colors at one point, though these days I don’t like to bleach it out in order to go blue or green, so mostly I stick to red or purple.

A monoprint is created by using thick, fingerpaint-like water-based inks to paint onto a blank acrylic printing plate, and then running the result through a press with wet paper just like an etching. It creates a single one-of-a-kind print that’s a merger of painting and randomness, the image flipped and often changed by the pressure and the way the ink interacts with the water-soaked paper. I would often print half a dozen in the course of a session and only keep the ones I really liked.

Reflect by Amy Crook

Reflect by Amy Crook

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: , , ,

Whorls and Turns

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Whorls and Turns by Amy Crook

Whorls and Turns by Amy Crook, $499

For once, I thought I’d post something brightly colored for Friday. This is a great example of the way monoprint inks feel a lot like high-quality finger paints, and the playfulness that it gave to the process. Also an example of me not wearing gloves in the printing studio like I should have, but I won’t tell if you don’t.

When I really got into monoprinting, one of the things I did was make a number of small etching plates that I could use interchangeably along with the monoprints and special papers to create one-of-a-kind pieces of art. Here you can see three of those small plates, which were printed onto the page in a single run.

Whorls and Turns, detail, by Amy Crook

Whorls and Turns, detail, by Amy Crook

These small plates were about 1-1.5″ each, and could be inked a number of different ways to get different effects. You can see these three were all initially inked with a deep blue, and then the bottom one was wiped almost clean of blue and inked again with the red to give it the effect of blue veins in red rock. Once those plates had been run, the rest was done on a blank monoprinting plate, which would be printed right over the images that were already there. It’s interesting bit of approximation, since the image prints backwards onto the page.

This one-of-a-kind print is on thick watercolor paper suitable for framing, but not ready to hang by itself. I’m happy to matte or frame pieces before shipping for the cost of the materials.

Whorls and Turns, 12.5″x11″ etching and monoprint on watercolor paper, $499 with free shipping.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: , , , , ,

Broken Rainbow

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Broken Rainbow by Amy Crook

Broken Rainbow by Amy Crook

I went through a phase many years ago of painting on glass — I even made friends with a stained glass artisan who would sell me their broken scraps, which I hauled around for many years before realizing I was pretty much over a painting base you can cut yourself with.

This piece uses both thinned acrylic paints and liquid food coloring to get the different color effects, each piece painted individually and then re-assembled from 3 broken sheets into one big panel. I took the photos by putting the piece on a light table so you can see the transparency of the colors. I’ve always meant to built a light box to house this so it can be displayed, but I’ve never had the tools and motivation at the same time.

Broken Rainbow, 15″x5″ acrylic paints and liquid food coloring on broken glass, not for sale.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: , , ,
4 Comments »

Pigeonholed

Saturday, May 29th, 2010

Pigeonholed by Amy Crook

Pigeonholed by Amy Crook

I painted this around the same time as some of my other abstract and semi-abstract pieces, and you can see some technical similarity with Precious and Untitled Experiment 1. The jewel-tone colors sneak through the black texture, and contrast with the frame around the sad, pigeonholed head. It’s hard to capture the subtle colors in a photograph, but the piece has a lot of depth in real life.

I actually sold this painting years ago to a friend who was moving at the time, and although it’s long paid for, he never did manage to pick it up and take it home, so I hold it in trust for him. Hey, Josh, come get your art!

Pigeonholed, 16″x20″ oil on canvas, sold.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: , , ,

« Or Head Back That Way Drip divider More Art This Way »