Archive for the ‘Whimsical and Strange’ Category
Super Cute Squid Redux, Now With Vectors!
Saturday, June 11th, 2011
Super Cute Squid illustration by Amy Crook
If you remember the sketch I posted a while back, this guy will seem awfully familiar. I wanted to do something polished with him, so I busted out my little-used Adobe Illustrator skills and drew him up.
I’m thinking he might need to be cards or t-shirts, what do you think?
Super Cute Squid Redux, vector art, not for sale (because he’s only virtual!).
At least if he’s not real, he’s got a friend to be virtual with him.
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Tentacles, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: illustrator, squid
4 Comments »
Whiteboard Gremlin
Saturday, June 4th, 2011
Gremlin whiteboard sketch by Amy Crook
A proper sketch Saturday at long last! I was sleepy and contemplating a cartoon I’m doing for a certain Delightineer, and so I doodled this happy guy on my whiteboard while I was making the next day’s to-do list.
Categories: Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: nfs, whiteboard
Puppy Love
Friday, May 20th, 2011
Puppy Love by Amy Crook
This cute little guy is one of the tea experiments I posted last Friday. Rather than watercolor, I made the wash with strong black tea, and then enhanced it with a brown fountain pen and, you guessed it, more tea. The shape that the tea left when it dried suggested a puppy to me, so I played a little bit with the pen and brush and eventually got something I was happy with.
The end result is warm and whimsical, just the perfect thing for a dog lover.
Puppy Love, 7″x5″ pen & ink and tea on paper.
Categories: Daily Art, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: nfs, pen and ink, puppy, sold, tea, whimsy
Poddleston
Friday, May 13th, 2011
Poddleston by Amy Crook
It’s Friday the 13th, so I thought I’d celebrate with a cartoon of my very own black cat. This doesn’t really look like him per se, but it shares some important features — big ears, wacky tail, and smirky face. His real name is Pod (short for Pteropodidae, the family name for fruit bats), but Poddleston is one of the many nicknames he goes by. I scribbled this up with Sharpie marker, while the real Pod was off somewhere making trouble.
Or napping. Champion nappers, my cats. They could totally nap for nationals.
Categories: Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: cat, nfs, pod, sharpie
3 Comments »
Innocent Stars
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Innocent Stars by Amy Crook
This piece started out as an experiment to see how the three different pens — blue, green and purple — would fare when wetted with the salt-and-water technique I used for Water Lilies 1. As you can see, the blue hardly bled into the salt at all, the purple let out some pink but stayed largely unblurred, and the green dissolved almost completely. I let it sit for a while on my bookshelf while I pondered what to do next, and eventually I decided that the swirling bright spots reminded me a bit of bright stars.
I mixed up a dark purple-blue-black and layered it into the background in messy, childlike strokes. Then I scattered some smaller salt granules over the wet paint and let it form another, softer set of stars as it dried.
Innocent Stars, 7″x5″ salt, watercolor and pen and ink on watercolor paper, $222 framed with free shipping.
The piece is framed and hanging out in my living room at the moment, just waiting to find a new home.
Innocent Stars, framed, by Amy Crook
Below you can see a couple of close-up details of the salt-and-ink “stars.” My camera was having trouble with the colors, though, so the first one is much more accurate than the second.
Innocent Stars, detail, by Amy Crook
Innocent Stars, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: for sale, framed, night, pen and ink, purple, salt, sky, stars, watercolor
2 Comments »
Curiosity
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
Curiosity by Amy Crook
My scanner can really take the sparkle out of anything, I think. This piece in real life is pure play — bright, cheery cyan with clusters of sparkling salt crystals, and even a single shining confetti star in the center of the “o” in curiosity.
I was experimenting once again with the various materials, salt and water, ink and paint, and by drawing my spirals in the still-wet paint I created these fascinating shapes. Then I put salt in the spirals and dripped more water over them, and it spread and pooled and dried in a glittering pattern. When it had dried, I thought the piece needed something, so I added the criss-cross stitching down the righthand side, and the word “curiosity” that seemed to fit so well with how the piece came to life.
Curiosity, 5″x7″ watercolor, salt, pen & ink and confetti star on watercolor paper.
You can get a better idea of the way the salt crystals look with this shot I took before it got its final touches:
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: blue, for sale, pen and ink, salt, spirals, watercolor
3 Comments »
Squid a la Gorey
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
Squid a la Gorey by Amy Crook
The watery environs of this squid were directly inspired by the cover of The Raging Tide: Or, the Black Doll’s Imbroglio by Edward Gorey. I didn’t even realize it was out of print until just now, though, oops.
I’ve been wanting to move away from doing just Sherlock cartoons in this style, and so I went to one of my other dorky fannish loves, cephalopods. This little squid looks like something unfortunate is about to befall him, which seems appropriate for something done in Edward Gorey’s style. Perhaps the black doll will come falling through the water, or maybe the squid will be called upon to help fill out another set of childhood obituaries. “G is for Gretchen, pulled down by a squid,” perhaps?
Squid a la Gorey, 7″x5″ pen and ink on 8.5″x5.5″ drawing paper.
You can also get this piece printed on a handmade card on Etsy.
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: edward gorey, for sale, pen and ink, squid, studio gallery
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