Archive for the ‘Daily Art’ Category
Troll Sketch
Sunday, July 8th, 2012
Troll sketch by Amy Crook
This little sketch was an experiment with a different style than my usual, and I’m rather pleased with the way he came out. I’m also amused that the scan is probably twice as big as the original, which is quite tiny in my little sketchbook.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: pencil, sketch
Mycroft & His Brolly
Saturday, July 7th, 2012
Mycroft and His Brolly cartoon by Amy Crook
This absurd little sketch was actually by request. Someone asked for a drawing of “Mycroft cuddling his umbrella, wearing matching pyjamas,” which was just so silly I couldn’t resist! And yes, of course those are umbrellas on their matching pjs, what else would they be?
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: cartoon, mycroft, pen and ink, sherlock
Red Planet 2
Friday, July 6th, 2012
Red Planet 2 by Amy Crook
The pitted surface of this planet combines with its warmer tones to be more Mars-like than the first Red Planet painting. I used salt in damp-to-wet watercolor to get the texture, after I’d made a wash that I liked the color variations on. The planets on white paper always make me think of some specimen or illustration in a science book, from some mysterious future where we’ve seen more planets than the nine eight in our solar system (poor Pluto!).
Red Planet 2, 7″x5″ salt and watercolor on paper.
Red Planet 2, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see light reflecting off some of the few little salt crystals that actually formed on the surface. Below, the planet floats serenely in its frame, just waiting to add some science fiction to your life.
Red Planet 2, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, planet, red, salt, watercolor
Fish Skellington
Thursday, July 5th, 2012
Fish Skellington by Amy Crook
The inspiration for this piece came from a bunch of things crashing together in my brain. We played Small World the other day and one of the races I played had a cute little fish skeleton as its icon. My tiny fandom pieces were making me think I might want to do more things like them, in and out of the realm of fannishness. I painted a bunch of washes using my red watercolor palette and one of them I considered drawing on with the white gel pen. And then all of a sudden I thought, no, the white gel pen would be better on black paper, and I got out the blue palette and made this wash that’s much more like the deep ocean.
So for once, there’s not much to say about the technique but I actually know what I was thinking when I created the piece. Weird.
Fish Skellington, 7″x5″ watercolor and gel pen on Arches cover black paper.
Fish Skellington, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see a close-up of the wee little fishie, who just isn’t all that happy about his lot in, er, death. Below, you can see him in a frame with the paint catching the sunlight just a bit, and the little skellington reflected in my iPhone’s screen.
Fish Skellington, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: black paper, for sale, gel pen, periwinkle, teal, watercolor
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SOON
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
Apple finally released the new MacBook Pros, and I ordered mine within a few days of the announcement. I used your wonderful donations and my other savings to fund part of it, and made judicious use of Apple’s 0% financing offer, and now my new baby is here! Except that I’m going to let the Apple Geniuses transfer the data from my old work laptop to my new one, so I’ll be handing both of them off in a few short hours.
Since they discontinued my beloved 17″ widescreen model, I got a 15″ MacBook Pro with a Retina Display and I’m hoping that will be clear enough to work in the higher resolutions, so I’m not losing too many pixels with the inches. I’m very much looking forward to the brighter, clearer display, not to mention having eight times the RAM. I mean, Photoshop will still attempt to use all the RAM, all the time, but this way there’s more to go around!
For those who want to know all the specs:
- 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display
- 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
- 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
- 512GB Flash Storage
There’ll be a period of adjustment when I give up some of my old Rosetta applications, since Lion (and Mountain Lion) don’t support the older stuff, but hopefully the transition will be smooth. I’ll be on my (even older, hah) black MacBook while my data transfers, so you won’t be rid of me, but it hasn’t got any of my newer Adobe applications on it, so I’ll be stuck on a few projects until my beloved work machines are returned to me.
Most importantly of all, I’ve named him “Vincent,” as in Price, and also Van Gogh.
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: words
Tentacle Spiral 3
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012
Tentacle Spiral 3, original art by Amy Crook
I used red-brown at one corner and yellow ochre at the other to make an earthy, warm wash, and then it sat around for a while while I wasn’t sure what to do with it. But when in doubt, I always turn to tentacles, and so I’ve added a third painting to the series. I rather like the effect of the lunar black tentacles on the powdery-matte Japanese watercolor background, with the warm glow coming through them.
Tentacle Spiral 3, watercolor on paper.
Tentacle Spiral 3, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see a close-up of the tentacles, and the textures of paper and paint together. I’ve made the detail photo into a computer wallpaper, this one’s less widescreen than yesterday’s for those of you with more square monitors. Below, I’ve put the painting in a frame so you can see how it might look, tucked in a frame on a shelf or perhaps a little piece of wall somewhere, adding tentacles to your home or office.
Tentacle Spiral 3, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books
Tags: brown, for sale, spirals, tentacle spiral, tentacles, watercolor, yellow
Filigree Planet 2
Monday, July 2nd, 2012
Filigree Planet 2 by Amy Crook
One more example of all the tiny spirals, this one with a few purple spirals sneaking in among the blue just to switch things up. The planet itself is a rich, grapey purple with some splashes of lighter periwinkle as highlights. The black space around it has quite a mysterious, almost wormhole-like texture to it, swirling around the planet’s inexorable gravity.
Filigree Planet 2, 7″x5″ watercolor and glitter gel pen on paper.
Filigree Planet 2, detail, by Amy Crook
I love the way the light shimmers off these glittery pens, but they fade to near-invisibility at other angles and distances. I even made you, well, okay, I made myself a computer wallpaper off of the detail shot above, but you can use it, too. Below, you can see the piece tucked into a black frame, reflecting serenely in my iPhone (as usual, it’s not included, heh).
Filigree Planet 2, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books
Tags: blue, filigree, for sale, glitter gel pen, planet, purple, spirals, violet, watercolor
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