Archive for the ‘Flowers, Trees and Landscapes’ Category
Sunset Bees
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Sunset Bees by Amy Crook
Somehow, when I don’t know what to paint, bees keep coming to mind! I suppose they do figure in two things I love quite a bit, Winnie-the-Pooh and Sherlock Holmes. Who can forget “In Which We are Introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees, and the Stories Begin”? And Holmes’ desire to retire to Sussex and keep bees is equally famous, though in the modern day I keep wanting to see him take up urban beekeeping instead and have box-hives on the roof.
This painting was a bit of an experiment with using watercolor ground to prime over the gesso on the canvas, and then using watercolors for the painting. The color tended to sink into the grooves and dry pale, which gives the sky a dreamy feeling of a sunset seen obliquely through the branches, and the bees flitting overhead.
Sunset Bees, 2.75″x2.75″ oil paint on canvas with 5″ wooden easel.
Below you can see the painting tucked into a bookshelf with my Pooh and Piglet bank, though in this case it looks a bit like Pooh is protecting Piglet from a horror of bees. Hah.
Sunset Bees with easel, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: bees, for sale, tiny painting, watercolor
Blue Moon
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Blue Moon by Amy Crook
I chose soft blue pen and ink to pair with a rich, deep blue background, and then added salt in two different ways for texture. The brightest stars are the now-familiar salt pools, and there’s a scattering of dimmer ones formed by salt sprinkled onto the damp watercolor paint and brushed off once it dried. It was still too stark for me, so I went and found my tiny dot-card sample of interference blue and added haloes of half-there light around each salt pool and the moon, too, which you can barely see in the above scan, and better down in the detail shots below.
Blue Moon, 7″x5″ salt, pen & ink, watercolor and iridescent watercolor on paper, nfs (sold).
Blue Moon, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above you can see three of the salt pools up close and personal, light glinting off their facets and a faint shadow of the interference blue. Below, the shimmer’s caught the light and you can see the brushed haloes around each large object, as well as the little starbursts of texture in the background of the deep blue sky.
Blue Moon, detail 2, by Amy Crook
And of course I took a photo of it framed, once I had it all ready for the show. In the sunlight, the background looks less black, though it’s still velvety-matte against the shimmering, sparkling stars and moon.
Blue Moon, framed watercolor by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: blue, blue moon, iridescent, moon, nfs, pen and ink, salt, sold, spirals, watercolor
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Moon Valley
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Moon Valley watercolor by Amy Crook
I’ve been working for many months now on the re-launch of Moon Valley Astrologer, and it’s finally up, huzzah!
I used watercolors to create both the Moon Valley header art and the background of stars, though as you can see there was some Photoshop tomfoolery on her final header to make the moon more like a proper orange harvest moon. Not to mention the cropping and text!
Moon Valley Astrologer header by Amy Crook
This site was a huge undertaking, but I’m really happy that it’s all come together in time, and I look forward to continuing to work with Celeste as the site continues to grow. And of course Michael, who does the heavy lifting of implementing my designs with best practices.
The painting itself went through several practice versions, including the very creepy-sky study Mountains of Madness. This final has a peaceful, luminous quality that I think really goes well with her site and personality. Although it’s not really a portrait of the actual Moon Valley where she lives, it conveys the feeling we were hoping for in subtle, inviting colors that we then echoed into the rest of the site.
Moon Valley, 14″x8.5″ watercolor on paper.
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, moon, moon valley astrologer, mountains, stars, watercolor
Drifting Down
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Drifting Down by Amy Crook
Another salt experiment, this time using pen and ink in a different way. The spirals inside the salt pools are actually watercolor, which the water didn’t really pick up at all this time, and then the grass and vines are both pen-and-ink that’s been brushed with water to give it a different texture.
I really like the peaceful, floating quality of this piece. The little salt pools seem weightless as they rest like the barest fluff on the upright grass. Actually it reminds me a bit of Horton Hears a Who — I wonder if there’s any Whos hiding there?
Drifting Down, 5″x7″ ink, salt, and watercolor on paper.
Drifting Down, detail, by Amy Crook
The meagre winter sunlight this time of year doesn’t catch the sparkle on the salt very well, but you can really see the texture of the paper and the watercolor-like quality of the curling ink vines. Below you can see it in a frame (with my iPhone for scale – not included, heh). It would fit nicely on a desk at work, for anytime you needed a moment of peace and weightlessness, growth from above and below and the effortless connection between them.
Drifting Down, framed art by Amy Crook
If you think you’d like to bring this piece into your life, or are just too shy to comment, feel free to email me! I’m always happy to help find the right home for my art, or just chat.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: brush and ink, for sale, pen and ink, salt, vines, watercolor
Mountains of Madness
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
Mountains of Madness by Amy Crook
This piece started out as an experiment in painting mountains for a client, and turned into a bewitchingly creepy landscape once I put in the sky. I used salt to create the ghostly texture in the sky, which one person described as a crowd of people staring down. Spooky!
I named it after a classic HP Lovecraft story that I haven’t even read (I know! Bad artist! No biscuit!), but the name just seemed to fit with the looming sky and lunatic moon.
Mountains of Madness, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper, nfs (sold).
Here you can see it tucked into a frame, which can be included for an additional fee.
Mountains of Madness, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: lovecraft, mountains, nfs, sold, watercolor
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Summer Reading
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Summer Reading by Amy Crook
I started this piece during the recent Playshop call with Melissa Dinwiddie, then went back and finished it up later. The tree and figure are painted with just two colors, quinacridone gold and amazonite genuine, and then I added in a bit of soft cadmium yellow when I went back and did the sky, and added in the fuller foliage. I especially like the way some of the leaves have little haloes of gold, and the rich greens and browns that came out of just those two colors mixed in different proportions.
Summer Reading, 5″x7″ watercolor on paper.
I think this would make a great piece to put in a bookshelf, nestled between books to remind you of the joy of reading.
Summer Reading, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: nfs, playshop, reading, sold, tree, watercolor
Sunset Postcard
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Sunset Postcard by Amy Crook, $222
This watercolor is actually from five years ago. It managed to escape the general posting of old art last year, but I decided to frame and scan it when I ran across it the other day when I was framing some other art.
When I was younger I swear I must have painted dozens of sunsets, usually with skeletal winter trees in front, the black branches framed by colored light. I don’t have many of those left, so this one is very nostalgic for me. My favorite part is along the line of the sun itself, where some of the red has bled onto the sun the way sometimes the sky seems to waver around the edges as the sun sinks below the horizon.
Sunset Postcard, approx. 6″x4″ watercolor on handmade postcard, $222, framed, with free shipping.
I floated the postcard on a black mat within a larger frame, which makes the vivid sunset colors glow out from the darkness.
Sunset Postcard, framed watercolor by Amy Crook, $222
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, handmade postcard, watercolor
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