Archive for the ‘Series and Books’ Category
Tentacle Deeps 7
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 7 by Amy Crook
This piece most closely reflects the very first Tentacle Deeps watercolor I did, I think –the same paper, no fancy salt or pen-and-ink effects, just the layers of watercolored tentacles reaching up from the bottom of the page. The wash was a bit more layered and random, and whenever a tentacle “breaks through” the upper right corner, there’s a little bit of a skip as though it’s breaching the surface of a pool, or slipping between realities.
Tentacle Deeps 7, 5″x7″ watercolor on watercolor paper.
Tentacle Deeps 7, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, green, tentacle deeps, watercolor
Twining Snakes Moleskine Volant
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
Twining Snakes Volant, detail, by Amy Crook
This bright green Moleskine Volant notebook has been hand-decorated with a pair of twining snakes using Sharpie markers. A black snake is biting his own tail in a double-looped ouroboros while his green friend slithers suggestively through his loops.
Moleskine’s colorful notebooks are ideal for customization, turning the high-quality book into a work of art in which to wrap your ideas. The acid-free ruled paper is a creamy ivory color, and a delight to write on. The large size Volants have 96 pages between their soft vinyl covers. The design is in permanent Sharpie, and should last as long as the notebook it’s drawn on.
Twining Snakes, 5″x8.25″ customized Moleskine Volant notebook, nfs (sold).
Twining Snakes Moleskine Volant by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: green, moleskine, nfs, sharpie marker, snakes, sold
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Tentacle Deeps 6
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 6 by Amy Crook
When I did the first one of these, I had no idea it would turn into a series that helps me explore all the techniques I’ve been working with this year.
For the sixth installment, I’ve used salt both on the background wash, and then separately on the tentacles themselves later. The places where the background is textured from the salt are subtle, the most obvious one being the cell-like structure in the upper left. The tentacles, on the other hand, have a strange mottled texture that definitely gives them a bit more dimension. There was also a bit of color bleed on the lower edge, which seems to be another side effect of the salt, giving the paints a powdery texture once it dries that then dusts itself onto the white when I brush the salt crystals away.
Tentacle Deeps 6, 5″x7″ watercolor on watercolor paper.
Tentacle Deeps 6, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, salt, tentacle deeps, turquoise, watercolor
Growth
Friday, March 18th, 2011
Growth by Amy Crook
I finished this little piece and then had to let it sit overnight to think of what to call it. The central circle initially put me in mind of a moon, or a planet, or possibly a pirate’s black spot when it was all by itself, a dark blue-black shadow of painted ink that dried to a gorgeous matte finish.
Then I came in days later and decided to add the little clusters of circles around it in black fountain pen, knowing that the ink would blur and spread as I made the little circles, adding texture and shadow. As I built up the outside texture, it reminded me of a decorative border, or a cluster of marine eggs, or possibly a layer of industrial growth around a planet, building up and sending off pieces out into the space around it. Or perhaps floating down from the white to aggregate, giving life to the lifeless rock in the middle.
Growth, 5″x5″ pen & ink and Japanese watercolor on watercolor paper.
Growth, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up of the tiny little circles that make up the pattern of growth, pushing off and away from the central mass. Below, you can see it in a narrow-edged frame with its brand-new sibling, and my iPhone for scale.
Growth 2 and Growth, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: black, brush and ink, for sale, growth, pen and ink, planet, studio gallery, watercolor
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Tentacle Deeps 5
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 5 by Amy Crook
And then there were five! I’m not sure how this morphed into such a big series, but I’ve enjoyed playing with the variations on a theme.
I did this one the same day I inked all the tiny details in my Gorey-esque illustration from Monday’s post, and I used the same tiny, long lines in the background here as in the background of John’s wallpaper. In this piece, the original wash was a very soft red-to-orange fade, so I chose my vivid orange fountain pen to carefully draw in the texture in the background. The pen is nearly the same color as the border of pooled watercolor around the top edge, so it really meshed well with the paint and brought the whole piece together.
I think this might be my favorite of the series so far.
Tentacle Deeps 5, 5″x5″ pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper.
Tentacle Deeps 5, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: nfs, orange, pen and ink, tentacle deeps, watercolor
Tentacle Deeps 4
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 4 by Amy Crook
Yet another installment of tentacles, this one exploring a couple of different techniques than the previous three.
I got the paper itself damp this time before doing the greyish wash, and then dripped in a bit of colour here and there to add dimension to the grey. Then I washed again over the whole paper, which muted the bright white borders and caused some but not all of the wash to bleed around the body of the image. Since the paper’s recycled, there’s also a bit of colour bleed-through from the inkjet printing on the back, which is covered by the darkest part of the wash but still adds some depth.
Then, once it was dry, instead of painting in the tentacles, I got out a blue-black pen and used obsessive crosshatching to create them. It’s always interesting and rather haphazard to create shapes like this freehand out of texture, without the comfort of penciling things in first, so the tentacles seem a bit less graceful to me this time around, and there’s no second or third layer of faded background shapes. Instead, I used a dark red to highlight the red blotches in the wash, and then slipped dark green spirals subtly into the tentacle shapes themselves — you can click on the image to see it bigger, which lets you really see all the details.
Tentacle Deeps 4, 5″x7″ ink and watercolor on watercolor paper.
I also made another computer wallpaper and iPhone wallpaper for this one — please let me know if you download them.
Tentacle Deeps 4, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, grey, pen and ink, spirals, tentacle deeps, watercolor
J is for John
Monday, March 7th, 2011
J is for John by Amy Crook
My second Sherlock Holmes/Edward Gorey pastiche, this one is based off of “J is for James who took lye by mistake” from The Gashlycrumb Tinies and BBC’s new Sherlock tv series.
Click the image if you’d like to really see the ridiculously obsessive line work — the wallpaper was particularly labor-intensive, and I have no one but myself to blame. I’ve been in a mood lately to do work like this, that involves a lot of tiny pen-and-ink details, and unlike similar attempts when I was younger, I find it rather meditative now. I often put on audio recordings and just sit and let the two things filter into my brain, though there are frequent breaks to IM friends and goof off online, not to mention stretching my back and resting my poor hand.
Now that I’ve got the techniques down, I have to figure out what I can do with them that isn’t a parody, pastiche or plain old copy, though.
J is for John who took lye by mistake, 8.5″x5″ pen and ink on sketchbook paper, sold.
You can still get the pair of them as handmade blank greeting cards on Etsy, though!
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: baker street tinies, crosshatching, edward gorey, nfs, pastiche, pen and ink, sherlock, sold, watson
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