Archive for the ‘Daily Art’ Category
Cartoon Sherlock & John 2
Friday, April 8th, 2011
Cartoon Sherlock & John 2 by Amy Crook
I couldn’t resist drawing up full-body color version of my Sherlock & John cartoons, though I’ve rather exaggerated their height difference here. Somehow it just seemed appropriate to make Sherlock a million miles tall and rail-thin compared to the more solid John Watson.
They’re supposed to start filming the new series next month, with new episodes coming out in the fall, and I’m absurdly excited. I’ve been slowly working my way through the original Holmes novels and short stories (in order, of course!), and I always enjoy spotting something from the show in the books, since the writers are both huge Sir Arthur Conan Doyle geeks. It makes me feel a little better about my own fannish obsessions.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: copic marker, john watson, nfs, pen and ink, sherlock, sherlock bbc, sherlock holmes, watson
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Burning Planet
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Burning Planet by Amy Crook, $169
A circle is such a simple form, and yet I feel like I could find an infinite variation in them. This one, too, looks the surface of a planet to me, or maybe some alien sun, the swirls of almost neon yellow marked by orange and red patterns.
This time I used my Windsor & Newton watercolors rather than the Japanese pigment inks, and it’s really interesting how the different media react differently to the addition of the salt. Rather than drying to a fine powder, each little spot of orange-red on the yellow paint is actually a salt crystal formed with the pigment-rich water as the salt on top dissolved, and then dried. If you look closely you can see the flat, squarish shapes of the salt crystals (click the image to enlarge). It even sparkles in the sunlight.
Burning Planet, 5″x5″ salt and watercolor on watercolor paper.
Here’s a terrible iPhone photo of the painting at an angle, so you can see the sun sparkling off the crystals:
Burning Planet, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, orange, planet, salt, sun, watercolor, yellow
Weeble Wednesday: Bride of the Mummy
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Bride of the Mummy by Amy Crook
This poor lady was stuck as inks for many weeks, waiting for me to get a refill on my colorless blender so I could properly fade the wear and tear on her bandages. I had fun making her as a counterpart to the Mummy, especially since I gave them opposite eyes freed of bandages.
She’s one of the bonus brides from my Monster Heart Coloring Book, of course, and I have just one illustration left to color before those are all done.
Bride of the Mummy, 5″x7″ pen and ink and Copic markers on watercolor paper. $89 with free shipping.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: bride, coloring book, copic marker, for sale, monster, pen and ink, weeble
Tentacle Planet
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
Tentacle Planet by Amy Crook
I guess I’ve just had tentacles on the brain lately! The first day I was experimenting with salt, I painted up the central circle of opaque gouache, which ended up looking a bit like Mars to me when it dried. The salt makes the pigments powder on the page, and you can see a little smear of paint-dust in the upper left from where I brushed it away.
I wasn’t satisfied with just the one layer of paint, though, so I watered down the same pure pigment into a light wash and painted in the halo of tentacles, sprinkling salt carefully at the base of each one, which further affected the surface of the circle around the edges as well.
Tentacle Planet, 5″x5″ Japanese watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Tentacles
Tags: brown, nfs, planet, salt, sold, tentacles, watercolor
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WIP: Zombie Crayons
Monday, April 4th, 2011
Zombie Crayons work in progress by Amy Crook
I spent several hours this weekend making art and managed not to really finish anything suitable for posting, oops! Here’s a sketch for my upcoming Zombie Family Coloring Book, an idea of how zombie kids might play with crayons. Note that, like all good zombies, she’s drawing her favorite thing – brains!
Categories: Daily Art, Works In Progress, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: pencil, wip
Dance of the Octopi
Friday, April 1st, 2011
Dance of the Octopi by Amy Crook
I can almost imagine sleeping in a room with one wall papered with dancing octopi, squid and jellyfish, all swimming in their Victorian frame of swaying seaweed. Though, actually, once I get the colors adjusted to my satisfaction, I may upload the design to Spoonflower and see about making some pyjama pants out of it, so I can sleep cool in my underwater dreams.
I drew the individual pieces up with pen and ink, and then scanned them in simple black, adding color as I worked with the design. There’s no original per se for this one, just a bunch of sketches in a couple of sketchbooks. At some point I’ll need to crop just one panel out for repeating properly, but I want to adjust the blue background and purple squid first.
Now you can better imagine the Octopi as wallpaper/curtains: Click here!
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: fish, jellyfish, octopus, pen and ink, photoshop, squid, wallpaper
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