Archive for the ‘Daily Art’ Category
Goldfish
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013
Goldfish, watercolor by Amy Crook
Last Thursday I finally got around to tearing some big sheets of paper I had into smaller, more Amy-sized sheets. Then I just had to play with the results, so I asked a friend to pick a color, and she said gold.
After a bit of playing and a bit of waiting, I ended up with this very bright red-orange-yellow background. Then I flipped it over, and found a fish in the shapes. I used a dark red and my lovely duochrome orange-gold paint to bring out the shape of this little guy, just a few strokes of paint to make a fishy.
Goldfish, 10″x8″ Japanese watercolor and duochrome watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
Goldfish, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the shine of the paint I used to put some of the gold in the goldfish. Below, the piece is sitting in a frame, and you can see how vibrant the colors really are.
Goldfish, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books
Tags: duochrome, fish, for sale, orange, portfolio, watercolor
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One for Sorrow
Monday, May 27th, 2013
One for Sorrow by Amy Crook
I hope you’re enjoying your Memorial Day weekend! This little crow is painted with ink and watercolor on some soft Japanese “sketch” paper which warps the moment I look at it damply. It’s soft and nicely textured, but won’t stay flat to save my life. I like the crow, though, and the bits of rainbow oil-slick color in his feathers. The wrinkles in the paper form a sort of halo around him, little harbinger of sorrow that he is.
One for Sorrow, 10″x8″ Japanese watercolor and sumi-e ink on Japanese paper.
One for Sorrow, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the texture in the paper and the wibbly wobbly warping from the ink wash. I discounted his price a bit to account for the strange paper, and you can see below how it fits fine into a frame but still refuses to flatten out.
One for Sorrow, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books
Tags: crow, for sale, japanese watercolor, sumi-e ink
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Sunday Round-up & Cat sketch
Sunday, May 26th, 2013
tentacles and brains and monsters, oh my!
Another week, another half dozen oddities. Monday the monsters got put down for a nap, and Tuesday I indulged in a big bowl of Brainton Soup. Wednesday I gave you all a peek into some of the things I’m working on. Thursday there was a completely awesome recipe for ice cream bread, and Friday this angler fish offered to eat it, and you. Finally, Saturday Cthulhu showed you his Ace of Hearts.
And now that it’s Sunday, there’s a sketch! I’ve been working on more animals, and so I sketched up this cat in my wee sketchbook to try to get his design more refined.
Cat sketch by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Sunday Round-Up
Tags: pencil, sketch
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Ace of Cthulhu Hearts
Saturday, May 25th, 2013
Ace of Cthulhu Hearts by Amy Crook
One of my friends asked me for a playing card prop for her Lady Luck costume at a con this weekend, and so I used my Cthulhu’s heart art and popped it into a quickie design. If I was going to do the cards for real, I’d probably do something more elaborate for the background, but I didn’t feel like fighting with the white background on the heart image. I printed a page of them on cardstock for her to cut up into a prop (I put 9 on the page so she’d have plenty of extras), and she’s planning to put one in the brim of her top hat.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Completed Commissions, Daily Art, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: cthulhu
Angler Fish 1
Friday, May 24th, 2013
Angler Fish 1 by Amy Crook, $250
After I painted this bloody red background, deliberately deep and dark, I thought that a glowing blue Angler fish would be the perfect thing to go on top of it. I love the contrast between the abstract, color-field-like painting in the background, all matte and dark Japanese watercolors that sank into the textured black paper, and the drawing-like simplicity of the fish on top. She’s got deceptive amounts of detail, from the subtle shading on her creepy blank eye to the deliberate comic “shine” marks around her phosphorescent lure. The paint itself is a little bit shiny, with some duochrome Aquamarine mixed in with the white and turquoise to create a shiny paint that sits on top of the background rather than blending in.
Also, she’s magnificently creepy. Win!
Angler Fish 1, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper, $250 with free shipping.
Angler Fish 1, work in progress, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the murky background painting along with the little pre-sketch I did to fix the design in my head. I didn’t want to pencil directly onto the paint, so I just doodled it on a bit of scratch paper instead. Below, you can see a close-up of the angler’s lure and her shiny paint looking very bright against the matte depths behind her.
Angler Fish 1, detail, by Amy Crook
And finally, you can see the fish in her frame! I keep saying her because, of course, male angler fish are wee, pathetic little things doomed to die in the service of their species. I feel comfortable putting these links off my site here, because none of you ever read this far down, anyway.
Angler Fish 1, framed art by Amy Crook
- Title: Angler Fish 1
- 7 in. x 5 in. watercolor, Japanese watercolor, and duochrome watercolor on Arches cover black paper
- $250 for the original (tax will be added if you live in CA)
- Frame is not included, but can be added for $50 (shipping included)
- Shipping is free anywhere in the world
- Payment plans are available, just email me
- The button below will take you to Paypal – if you’d like to pay another way, just let me know and we’ll work it out
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books
Tags: angler fish, black paper, fish, for sale, iridescent, japanese watercolor, watercolor
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Random Recipe: Ice Cream Bread
Thursday, May 23rd, 2013
That’s right, ice cream bread. This is actually the simplest recipe I’ve ever posted or probably even made, so it’s ridiculous that I drew three pictures for it, which is why you’re getting this extra text at the top. Seriously, super easy.
The result is a bit like a cross between a quick bread (eg banana bread) and a cupcake. Fluffy, sweet, and really delicious.
Preheat oven to 350F. Lubricate a loaf pan with spray oil or butter or whatever. There, now you’ve prepped.
Take one pint of slightly melty ice cream, add to 1.5 cups of self-rising flour. The self-rising is very important here, or else you will not get delicious fluffy bread. If you don’t have self-rising flour you can readily google the way to make your own by adding baking powder/soda and salt in the appropriate quantities.
I used my Kitchenaid Mixer to mix it all up, because the ice cream was still pretty frozen at that point. Mix until the flour is all wet, into a rather cold, sticky, thick batter. Put that in the pan you already oiled up. Bake for 45 minutes or so, until the top is starting to get golden brown and delicious. Cool a bit before you try to turn it out of the pan, or it will all fall apart.
One caveat in choosing ice cream flavors is to really think about the fact that this is going into a hot oven. Cookie dough ice cream, for instance, will probably not be so great once the cookie dough gets half-baked inside the bread. Ben & Jerry’s Peach Cobbler, however, was awesome.
Seriously, awesome.
Bread made out of ice cream. What more could life offer?
To recap:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Oil or butter a loaf pan.
- 1 pint of ice cream added to 1.5 cups of self-rising flour.
- Bake for 45 min or until golden brown and delicious.
- Awesome.
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: food, nfs, recipe, sharpie
2 Comments »
Works in Progress
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013
stuff wot I’ve got goin’ on
I thought I’d do a bit of a WIPs Weds, though this is but a sample of my pile of half-abandoned art. Those following my Instagram probably recognize the two on the right, which are still waiting to be worked on after a couple of weeks of waffling. I really like the way this tentacle piece came out, which is why I tried out the red spirals, but I’m not sure tentacles are the right answer so it’s waiting for something to come to me. Or for me to give up and paint tentacles on it. The green one has this interesting leafy/feathery sort of texture that’s quite pale and again, I haven’t quite hit upon the right foreground to go with the background. Some sort of fairy, perhaps.
In the upper left you have the sketch for H is for (Mrs) Hudson, the next installment in my Baker Street Tinies series. Then there’s a belated birthday card with the Eleventh Doctor that’s waiting for my TARDIS (okay, Lapis) blue marker refill to show up, and below that is the pencils to the very first panel of my rather stalled Giant Rats of Sumatra project. Then finally in the lower left is a strange little landscape with two bloody moons and a dark city below, waiting for me to figure out what details I want to add.
Is there anything you were hoping I was working on?
Categories: Daily Art, Works In Progress
Tags: wip
2 Comments »
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