Archive for the ‘Daily Art’ Category

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
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Being Your Slave

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Being Your Slave, art by Amy Crook, poem by Shakespeare

Being Your Slave, 9″x12″ oil on canvas board, poem by William Shakespeare

A recent late-night discussion on Twitter about the movie The Pillow Book with Ewan McGregor reminded me of this piece, so I thought I’d post it for today’s art. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 57 adorns the chest of our nameless man, the swirls and strokes of hand-painted calligraphy decorating the planes and valleys of his torso.

I first painted the figure itself, and then once it was dry the painstaking brush calligraphy was applied by hand on top. I suspect the process, while far easier on the flat surface, is a lot less fun when the person in question is merely a painting.

This piece is painted on canvas board, which is primed canvas wrapped around a cardboard base rather than stretched on wooden bars. Because of the nature of the piece, it wants to lean insouciantly against a stack of books or be tucked into a nook in a bookshelf rather than framed and hung — any frame or matte it was put in would obscure part of the calligraphy.

I’m not sure if Shakespeare would approve of the use to which I’ve put his words, but given his penchant for low humour and bawdy lines, I like to think he’d be amused.

Categories: Daily Art, Nudes and Other Sexy Things, People, Figures and Faces, Things I'm a Fan Of
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Bonus Cartoon! Chris Anthony

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Chris Anthony by Amy Crook

Chris Anthony by Amy Crook

Apparently I completely forgot to make an art post yesterday, oops! Busy Amy is busy, but at least I got banana bread made before the bananas got too ripe, which made an excellent breakfast.

A few months back I had a chance to turn Chris Anthony of Etherjammer into a cartoon, and I never did post it here, so I thought I’d put it up today as bonus art (yes, this means today’s real art post will follow). His cartoon was especially fun because of the challenge of drawing a weeble with facial hair — interesting placing a mustache on someone with no nose!

If you want to be a cartoon, I’d love to draw you!

Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
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Cartoon! Wendy & Me

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Wendy and Me by Amy Crook

Wendy and Me by Amy Crook

Today’s art is another cartoon, this time of me and Wendy Cholbi, tech mermaid. Wendy wanted to expand her WordPress Installation offerings to include a package with some design included, and so I drew up this image to go with our bios on the sales page. It was fun not only to make Wendy into a mermaid, but to give my hair a bit of extra color (in real life that color would be so hard to maintain!) as well as the bunny ears, and a couple of t-shirts from ThinkGeek that neither of us actually owns — yet.

We’re also doing a free Website Color Clinic call on Wednesday to help people pick their own web palettes. Come join us and listen to me babble nervously about color!

Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
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Monster Under the Bed

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Monster Under the Bed by Amy Crook

Monster Under the Bed by Amy Crook

This is another wee bedside doodle, this one dipping its toe into the horror genre. I swear to this day a part of me still believes in things that lurk under the bed — how else to explain the sound of something sliding against the metal frame when both cats are asleep, and in sight?

Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Tentacles, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
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Birthday Flower

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Birthday Flower by Amy Crook

Birthday Flower by Amy Crook

I was going to a friend’s nice’s 18th birthday party, and in lieu of a gift I decided to hand-draw her birthday card. I picked this bright tropical hibiscus flower. I remember that I Googled something related to a trip she was taking and these flowers came up, and so I broke out my Copic markers and drew this for her. I’m not sure if she still has the original, but I’m pleased that I remembered to scan it before I gave it to her.

Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
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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
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