Archive for the ‘Flowers, Trees and Landscapes’ Category
Gestate, Uncurl, Blossom
Thursday, May 22nd, 2014
Gestate, Uncurl, Blossom; a calligraphic triptych by Amy Crook
Three small words and a simple illustration of a plant going from seed to flower in three panels. A metaphor for creating. A reminder of what it takes to get the beauty of a flower.
Gestate. The tiny green curled in the heart of brown seed.
Uncurl. The plant braves the world, straightens up, spreads its leaves wide.
Blossom. The beauty that can’t exist while the plant is still safe in its seed.
Gestate, Uncurl, Blossom, a triptych of watercolor artworks on 4″x6″ Fluid watercolor paper.
Gestate, Uncurl, Blossom; three details by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the three tiny watercolor illustrations up close: seed, curled-up sprout, and flower. Below, the trio in frames, lit by warm spring sunshine.
Gestate, Uncurl, Blossom; framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Words Words Words
Tags: calligraphy, for sale, triptych, watercolor
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Harbingers
Thursday, May 8th, 2014
Harbingers by Amy Crook
These crows are flying in ahead of the storm, lightning waiting silvery and shining in the dark clouds above, sunshine glowing off the white clouds in the foreground. They’re harbingers of the storm, bringing rain and darkness and sweeping change in behind them. Each crow is like a smudge on the horizon, that resolves itself into a flying bird when you look at it closely, black in the midst of the blue and violet of the sky.
Harbingers, 8″x4″ pen & ink, watercolor, and glitter gel pen on Fluid watercolor paper.
Harbingers by Amy Crook
Above, I’ve tilted the painting so that the glittering spirals catch the light, lightning limning the dark clouds. Below, you can see the painting in a temporary frame, a snippet of stormy sky like the smell of ozone on a hot day.
Harbingers by Amy Crook
Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books
Tags: clouds, crow, horizons, nfs, pen and ink, sold, spirals, watercolor
Blue Lilacs
Wednesday, May 7th, 2014
Blue Lilacs, abstract art by Amy Crook
If you sit in the shadows of lilac trees and look up at the sunny sky, the color can get washed away, turning the flowers into shadowy blues and purples, whiting out the edges of the leaves and making the sky seem like a bright, endless light. We had this row of lilac trees where I was growing up, and I had many adventures as a kid beneath them, imagining the tunnel between the rows as any number of fantastical places.
Blue Lilacs, 4″x6″ Primatek watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Blue Lilacs, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see some of the subtle layering of desaturated blue and violet, framed by the brighter green with its sun-washed edges. Below, you can see the piece in a frame, like a tiny piece of summer you can have year-round.
Blue Lilacs, framed art by Amy Crook
Can you smell the lilacs?
Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: flowers, nfs, sold, watercolor
Blood Moon 5
Tuesday, May 6th, 2014
Blood Moon 5 by Amy Crook
Another Blood Moon made its way into my work queue this month, this time by adding some very subtle tentacles to an older painting in lieu of the previous image. This one is much more eerie than the last one, the bloody color leeching from the shadow to the white parts of the moon, and a second, smaller moon waiting off to one side, ruddy and strange. This sky is not our sky, or perhaps it is our sky many millennia hence, when the stars have become right and Great Cthulhu will rise up from R’lyeh to reclaim the planet for himself.
Blood Moon 5, 5″x7″ Japanese watercolor on Arches cover black paper.
Blood Moon 5, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can more clearly see the subtle mist and dark black tentacles rising up from the bottom of the painting, reaching toward the bloody moons. Below, the piece rests in a frame, a little window to some awful future*, or perhaps somewhere very far away indeed.
Blood Moon 5, framed art by Amy Crook
*Perhaps it’s Thundarr the Barbarian’s future, instead of Cthulhu’s. I always did like Ookla.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Tentacles
Tags: black paper, blood moon, for sale, japanese watercolor, moon, more cowbell, tentacles, watercolor
Blood Moon 4
Sunday, May 4th, 2014
Blood Moon 4 by Amy Crook
May the Fourth be with you! I chose a swirly, spiraled abstraction of a real-life space phenomenon today to go with the long time ago and far, far away that today brings to mind.
It’s a bright, warm afternoon when I’m writing this, and the cold hour standing outside when I saw the Blood Moon eclipse does seem rather long ago and far away. I spent almost an hour staring up at the sky, eyes fixed on the sliver of moon above through the haze of clouds that waxed and waned. I could only see Spica and Mars of all the bright objects, because I’m in the middle of a city in the middle of a lot of other cities, but I could see enough to be worth the chilled feet.
Blood Moon 4, 5″x5″ Japanese watercolor, duochrome watercolor, and glitter gel pen on Arches cover black paper.
Blood Moon 4, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the bright red and gold glitter shining atop the much more muted red-brown and white eclipsed moon. Below, you can see the piece in a frame with its shining mist.
Blood Moon 4, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: black paper, blood moon, duochrome, for sale, glitter gel pen, iridescent, iridescent watercolor, japanese watercolor, moon, watercolor
Splash 2
Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
Splash 2, abstract watercolor by Amy Crook
You may be wondering what happened to the first Splash, and the answer to that is that the artist didn’t take off the masking tape in time, oops. Still, I really love this second version — it’s got a lot of delightfully layered texture reminiscent of waves breaking over and over, plus if you turn it on its side you can kind of see Godzilla.
I was playing with implied boundaries here, and also testing the color gamut on my printer — I’m sad to say that this doesn’t reprint well at all, because the delicate shadings of blue and turquoise turn to cyan mush.
Splash 2, 8″x8″ watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Splash 2, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up that shows the layers of color and texture that give this work its depth and beauty. Below, you can see it in a frame, brightly lit by the spring sunshine.
Splash 2, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: blue, for sale, godzilla, splash, turquoise, watercolor
New Growth
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014
New Growth by Amy Crook
Spring is creeping out into the US despite the weather, with daffodils here and brave buds there. Here in California we’ve got lots of flowers and new leaves, though there’s a yellow edge to some of them with the drought.
This painting echoes those delicate new leaves and water-drenched old growth, unfurling after a life-giving rain shower.
Art can symbolize something you want in life, and be a talisman for your own movement in that direction. Is there somewhere you could use a breath of spring and a burst of new growth?
New Growth, 7″5″ Japanese watercolor on Arches cover black paper.
New Growth, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see how there’s a ghost of yellow even beyond the spray of new growth, like the mists of pollen floating on the page. Below, you can see the painting in a frame, washed bright in the spring sunshine.
New Growth, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: black paper, for sale, green, japanese watercolor, watercolor
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