Archive for the ‘Daily Art’ Category
Scribble Goth
Friday, September 30th, 2011

Ditzy Bones fabric print by Amy Crook
Friday is for fabric! At least this one is. I’ve created a line of fabrics over at Spoonflower called Scribble Goth, made up of scribbly skulls, spikey stripes and even one lone ditzy print of teeny tiny bones.
I haven’t made all of these designs available for purchase yet, because there’s a small but significant cost associated with doing so (it adds up!). If you’d like to buy one of these fabrics for your own projects, just let me know (comment here! contact there! email! twitter! whatever works for you, really) and I’ll buy a swatch for myself so you can get sewing. I’m even willing to make other colorways, if you’d like a blood red skirt or some Halloween orange pajamas.

Scribble Goth Skull Border fabric design in two colorways by Amy Crook
I’ve also made a version of the above border that’s got the rest of the fabric covered in the polka dots below.

Scribble Goth Skully Polka Dot fabric design in two colorways by Amy Crook
I’ve got a trio of stripes using the spikey cross from the border, though I only put two of them in the post.

Scribble Goth Cross Stripe 1 in two colorways by Amy Crook

Scribble Goth Cross Stripe 2 in two colorways by Amy Crook
And my favorite of all the patterns, a different sort of polka dot with the skulls arranged in florets.

Scribble Goth Skull Florets fabric design in two colorways by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: bones, cross, fabric, goth, pen and ink, skull, spoonflower
2 Comments »
A Murder of Crows
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
This piece uses several different techniques together but really just one pen, although I did go back in and add just a hint of color to the shadowy, sunlit crows in their flight. I’m very pleased with the overall effect, which makes me think of a cover or title page to some mystery novel or horror story. There’s even 13 crows in my murder to make it extra spooky.
A Murder of Crows, 6″x6″ pen & ink and salt on watercolor paper.
I like the way the salt is nearly invisible until the sunlight hits it, adding sparkle and color to an otherwise monochrome image.
The curving edges on each bird were partially created by the puddles of inky salt water, an imprecise process at best, which helps to give them a sense of being backed and blurred by strong sunlight.
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: brush and ink, calligraphy, crow, for sale, murder of crows, pen and ink, salt
1 Comment »
Weeble Basement Cat
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Weeble Basement Cat by Amy Crook
Not my usual weeble, but I was inspired by this lolcat to draw my own version of a Basement Cat. What can I say, I spend all day on the internet. At least it’s not Nyancat.
Categories: Daily Art, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: basement cat, cat, nfs, pen and ink
Tentacle Deeps 16
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Tentacle Deeps 16 by Amy Crook
It’s Tuesday and that means tentacles! This is painted on a handmade postcard from India, just like Tentacle Deeps 12 & Tentacle Deeps 13.
I actually use the same two colors of paint for the wash on this as yesterday’s art, but the fade is much looser, and there’s no pure pigment, just different mixtures. When I went to put the tentacles on, it struck me that I hadn’t done a horizontal one yet, and so I used the granular lunar black watercolor to paint in these tentacles. The paint settled into the groovs in the paper, emphasizing the texture of the paper and letting the background color glow through the black as though the tentacles are strangely translucent.
Tentacle Deeps 16, ~4″x6″ watercolor on handmade paper.
I can’t resist taking these bottom-up shots whenever I’m photographing these tentacle pieces these days, even though there’s no salt at all on this one.

Tentacle Deeps 16, detail, by Amy Crook
Here we are, a photo of the framed piece with my iPhone providing scale.

Tentacle Deeps 16, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, orange, red, tentacle deeps, watercolor
White Hot
Monday, September 26th, 2011

White Hot by Amy Crook
It’s hard to capture the way this piece fairly glows with colour. There’s just two pigments, a pink and a rich orangey-gold that fades to the cream color of the paper in the center. I added seven salt circles, double-drawing the spirals in an orange-red and the apricot gold, so the centers of the salt circles reflect the pink from the corners, and the outer circles of salt crystals reflect the orange from the center.
White Hot, 5″x5″ salt, pen & ink, and watercolor on paper.

White Hot, detail 1, by Amy Crook
The salt crystals add a three-dimensional texture to the image, like planets being drawn into an inverse black hole.

White Hot, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, orange, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
1 Comment »
Zoisite Swirls
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
This piece is an echo of Hibiscus Green, but using the color palette from yesterday’s art. The mixture of the gold tones and zoisite texture gives it an illusion of being an iridescent bronze, even though the paint is actually quite matte. The zoisite is especially matte, soft and velvety looking on the paper’s surface.
Zoisite Swirls, 6.375″x4.25″ hibiscus tea on paper, $77 with free shipping.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: celadon, crane and co, for sale, spiral, watercolor, zoisite
Squamous Turtle
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
I made this little guy in a very similar manner to the Opera Squid, except I mixed rich quinacridone gold with the grey-green zoisite genuine for his palette. He gets his name from one of Lovecraft’s favorite adjectives, which means scaly, and from the texture created when the granular zoisite settles out of the mix, leaving the quinacridone to stain the paper gold.
Squamous Turtle, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper, nfs (sold).
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals
Tags: nfs, sold, turtle, watercolor, zoisite
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