Archive for the ‘Things I’m a Fan Of’ Category
Endless: Dream
Monday, September 27th, 2010
Endless: Dream by Amy Crook
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series has inspired thousands of artists of all sorts since it began in 1989. I made a total of 5 of these small etching plates for the Endless, though for some reason I never printed the Death plate by itself, although it’s used in one of my larger pieces, Red Death.
This plate represents the series’ main character, Dream. His dark robes, at times, showed the faces of infinite dreamers around the hem, and so I used a tattered piece of silk to create the impression of cloth at the top of the plate. Then I drew the faces in by hand, young and old, male and female, each of them dreaming with their eyes shut tight.
Dream, 2″x2.75″ etching on 6″x6″ watercolor paper, 1/1, $199 with free shipping.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: etching, for sale, intaglio, sandman
Pooh and Piglet Picking Violets
Friday, September 24th, 2010
Pooh and Piglet Picking Violets, color edition, by Amy Crook
One of the easiest way to etch a printing plate is called dry point, where you basically draw on the softer metal of the plate with a sharp steel point, creating grooves in the plate. These never last very long, I only got half a dozen prints out of it (I did 2 editions, 3 each of the black and white, below, and the color, above), but there’s something very satisfying about working directly with the material this way.
The color edition was created by carefully rubbing the inks just into the parts of the plate where I wanted them, and then taking care not to overly clean off the excess, leaving the soft glow of yellow on Pooh bear, as well as the gentle shading on the greenery.
This was actually my very first attempt at printmaking, and I wasn’t sure what to do, so I drew two of my most favorite characters. I’ve given away the rest of the edition so I only have the two examples left, which I’m choosing not to sell because of the copyright still surrounding A. A. Milne’s wonderful characters.
Pooh and Piglet Picking Violets, 10″x6″ etching on watercolor paper, not for sale.
Pooh and Piglet Picking Violets, black and white edition, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: edition, etching, intaglio, nfs, piglet, winnie the pooh
2 Comments »
Bobtail Squid
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
Bobtail Squid by Amy Crook
I think bobtail squid are just the cutest of the squid family, so I decided to paint one up for another tiny painting. He’s actually a deep-sea creature, so he should rightly be floating in a serene black depth, but I wanted to give him a little lighter of a background, so I made it a dark blue with a bit of sunshine coming in. Maybe it’s really the lights of an oncoming research vessel, who knows?
Bobtail Squid, 4″x6″ oil paint on canvas board with a 5″ wooden easel.
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: for sale, oil painting, squid, studio gallery, tiny painting
Weeble Wednesday: Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
Nyarlathotep Weeble by Amy Crook
Adding another weeble to my depictions of the mythos of HP Lovecraft, I give you Nyarlathotep. He appears at least twice as a handsome, charismatic Pharaoh gathering armies for the Great Old Ones. He’s also known as the Crawling Chaos, and he shows up in a few other, less palatable forms, in other stories. I had fun drawing his creepy-crawly shadow, not to mention the sneaky monsterified details on his otherwise traditional costume.
Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, 5″x7″ pen, ink and Copic marker on paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring book, copic marker, for sale, lovecraft, monster, pen and ink, tentacles, weeble
The Beating of Mighty Wings
Saturday, September 4th, 2010
From the Darkness, I Hear the Beating of Mighty Wings, lithograph by Amy Crook
This piece was a two-part stone lithograph drawn by hand on two stones, which is a really interesting and odd process that I only got a chance to try out twice during the short time I had access to the materials.
The image on the left contains a quote from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series about his character of Death, and that’s the quote which I used to title the whole piece. On the right, we have a quote from the Joy Division song “In a Lonely Place,” which was quoted in the original comics for The Crow — the second comic series I ever collected (the first was Bill Sienkiewicz’s Stray Toasters). The image, of course, is of the main character from the comic and later movie, and has a pattern of wings overlaying the shadows, a match to the outspread wing in the first panel.
There are a lot of hidden things here about death and myth and meaning, but also about art and inspiration, and the process that artists of all sorts go through, amalgamating all the art they consume, the culture around them and the facts and trivia they learn, and putting it through the mill of their own experience. The Crow is littered with quotes from songs, The Sandman is rife with literary, historical and mythical references, and between them there is a small but coherent thread of death and flight and black wings that carry the soul away, that I’ve chosen to weave into this artwork.
From the Darkness, I Hear the Beating of Mighty Wings, edition, 22″x15″ stone lithograph on watercolor paper.
The print above on the buff paper was done in an edition of 26, of which I still have 6 (with some variation between prints owing to the process). I also have a single print on heavy natural-deckle handmade watercolor paper that’s one of a kind. No more of these can ever be made — the stones were long sanded down smooth and used for other artworks.
From the Darkness, I Hear the Beating of Mighty Wings, AP by Amy Crook
From the Darkness, I Hear the Beating of Mighty Wings, A/P, 22″x17″ stone lithograph on handmade watercolor paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, People, Figures and Faces, Things I'm a Fan Of, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: crow, edition, for sale, lithograph, print series
« Or Head Back That Way
More Art This Way »
