Archive for the ‘Words Words Words’ Category
SOON
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
Apple finally released the new MacBook Pros, and I ordered mine within a few days of the announcement. I used your wonderful donations and my other savings to fund part of it, and made judicious use of Apple’s 0% financing offer, and now my new baby is here! Except that I’m going to let the Apple Geniuses transfer the data from my old work laptop to my new one, so I’ll be handing both of them off in a few short hours.
Since they discontinued my beloved 17″ widescreen model, I got a 15″ MacBook Pro with a Retina Display and I’m hoping that will be clear enough to work in the higher resolutions, so I’m not losing too many pixels with the inches. I’m very much looking forward to the brighter, clearer display, not to mention having eight times the RAM. I mean, Photoshop will still attempt to use all the RAM, all the time, but this way there’s more to go around!
For those who want to know all the specs:
- 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display
- 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
- 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
- 512GB Flash Storage
There’ll be a period of adjustment when I give up some of my old Rosetta applications, since Lion (and Mountain Lion) don’t support the older stuff, but hopefully the transition will be smooth. I’ll be on my (even older, hah) black MacBook while my data transfers, so you won’t be rid of me, but it hasn’t got any of my newer Adobe applications on it, so I’ll be stuck on a few projects until my beloved work machines are returned to me.
Most importantly of all, I’ve named him “Vincent,” as in Price, and also Van Gogh.
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: words
Pomegranate
Thursday, June 28th, 2012
Pomegranate watercolor by Amy Crook
This would be one of the pieces full of little tiny spirals (as were both this week’s prior art posts, really) that caused me to Instagram my poor ace-bandaged wrist instead of posting art on Saturday. Well, this combined with a work project that involved a lot of sustained precision trackpad work, anyway. Two things that really don’t go together, apparently!
Speaking of things that caused me trouble, it’s very hard to find a good quote about pomegranates not from the Bible. I was very pleased to finally find this quote from a translation of Homer, though I swear pomegranates figured in more stuff in English class.
I originally painted this as another mostly-circular wash, but when the shape and color started to become decidedly pomegranate-like, I embraced it. The spirals are like the seeds, to me, the mystery hiding inside the lovely fruit. The quote came last, and as you can see below, the word “glows” was done with two shades of red and a nice little smear to create a halo.
Pomegranate, 7″x5″ pen & ink and watercolor on paper.
Pomegranate, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above, the glow, both in the inner line work of a brighter red, and the soft pink smear around it created by running an eraser over the still-wet ink. Below, you can see a close-up of the spirals and the way the burgundy ink interacts with the various shades of watercolor beneath it.
Pomegranate, detail 2, by Amy Crook
And finally here what it looks like in a frame, just waiting to bring a bit of glowing mystery to your home, or the corner of your office. The frame isn’t included, but I’m happy to add it in for a small additional fee.
Pomegranate, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Whimsical and Strange, Words Words Words
Tags: calligraphy, for sale, pen and ink, pomegranate, spirals, watercolor
On Fandom, Fan Art, and Being a Big Dorky Fangirl
Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
S is for Sherlock, Baker Street Tinies art by Amy Crook
By Starlight by Amy Crook
I sometimes think I’ve always been a fan of something. I remember getting into reading Star Trek books when I was maybe 12, but before that it was Stephen King and my big horror phase at 10, and before that I read every Nancy Drew book the library had, and all the Oz books (did you know it was a series?), and the Narnia books, and… Yeah.
I’ve always lived best in other people’s worlds. Even though every one of the things I named above, and every one of the things I’m a fan of now is problematic in some way, that doesn’t diminish my love for them.
Doctor Who
Bookmark 1
by Amy crook
As an artist, it’s always been a calling to me to draw or paint the things I was a fan of. I remember when I was younger, drawing ridiculously detailed pencil art from posters of the bands and actors I swooned over as a pre-teen. And now I’m nearly 40, and I still draw and paint things out of other people’s worlds, other people’s imaginations.
Transformative works are everywhere we look these days. From Sherlock to The Avengers, the new anthologies of stories in the Cthulhu Mythos and the explosion of unlicensed fanworks online (note: yes, the stuff here goes in that category), people are looking back through the things that came before, rifling through the imaginations of the past to build a foundation for the things they make now.
I love it.
Every once in a while I roll my eyes at the endless sequels and remakes and book-to-movie adaptations, but in truth it’s more Sturgeon’s Law (90% of everything is crap) I’m disparaging than the desire to depict Shakespeare as high school drama or make stylized movie posters for films from a different era.
So, I’ve embraced my dorky fangirl heritage, and in amongst the abstract salt paintings and tentacles you’ll find cartoon monsters out of someone else’s imagination and other pastiches of my favorite things.
I’ll just try not to do too much that falls into that bottom 90%.
Weeble Voldemort cartoon by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Things I'm a Fan Of, Words Words Words
Tags: info, why, words
Why Tentacles?
Wednesday, May 30th, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 30 by Amy Crook
I’ve had some time to think about this question since I was asked at the STUDIO Gallery reception (the show’s now over but it was wonderful to be a part of it), and I’ve come up with some answers that are probably true some of the time. Your mileage may vary.
First off, tentacles are fun. I’ve said this before, but it’s probably the top reason I keep up with the series, just because I really enjoy doing it. The scribbly ones are fun to draw, the painted ones are fun to paint, and there’s still new things I can do with them that I haven’t done before.
Now that the shallow answer is out of the way, we can dip our toes a little deeper, though in the end the answer is still about fun. What can I say, I’m a fan of fun.
Being scared is fun.
It is when you know it’s harmless, anyway. And it’s wonderful to explore the edge where scary meets something else. I love things that are morbidly funny, frighteningly beautiful, or creepy-cute, just to name a few. It’s those ragged edges where tentacles are gorgeous and otherworldly and creeping into our thoughts like, well, tentacles, that keeps me coming back not just to the Tentacle Deeps series, but to weeble Cthulhu and logos with skulls on them and pendants of spiderwebs.
Real-life spiders give me the willies, but art that makes them fascinatingly lovely is amazing to me.
I enjoy taking people to that place where you go, “Huh, I never would’ve thought of that.” I like creating something that is, let’s be honest here, not just another fucking landscape. If I’m going to obsessively detail anything, I want it to be something interesting, fascinating and maybe even a little bit repellent, something funny or charming but also morbid and grim.
It may be that that narrows my audience to a very small sliver of people who, like me, enjoy seeing the horrific beauty in the tentacles that slide up from the depths for purposes unknown. But you can kind of guess they aren’t savory, that these strange alien arms reaching upward aren’t straining towards the surface of our world, our pond, our imaginations, for anything that’s good for our health.
But then, since when has anything that’s really fun been all that good for your health?
Tentacle Spiral 1 by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Tentacles, Words Words Words
Tags: info, tentacles, why
Think Small
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012
Small Things, Great Love by Amy Crook
Mostly, I work small.
I make paintings as small as 2.75″ square, and the vast majority of my work in the past couple of years has been 5″x7″. Nothing that takes up much space on a bookshelf, let alone fills a whole wall.
I think life is in the details. There’s grand, sweeping panoramas and grand, sweeping gestures and big harry audacious goals, sure. But there’s as much beauty in a single leaf or flower petal, in paying for the person’s toll behind you, or in crossing an item off your to-do list as there is in the big things. People overlook it, just like the introverts get overlooked for the extroverts, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you’ve got to set audacious goals, but in the long run the success or failure of the big things depends on crossing all the little ones off your list, one at a time.
I like the physicality of working small. Though my masseur and my eyesight might disagree, there’s something very satisfying to me about drawing Many Tiny Lines, or using the Smallest Brush Ever. It’s one of the reasons I love my salt paintings, because they’re filled with miniscule details that sort of make themselves, and then beg for me to add to them or work off them or just appreciate them.
It’s micro-chaos being turned into something beautiful.
This isn’t that thing about the butterfly in Asia making Tornadoes in the Midwest, either. Small things are just that, small, but it’s what they can do that interests me. The effect of one cheerful smile in a sea of frowns, of holding the door for someone with full hands, or inversely of shutting the door in their face and leaving them to flounder.
Putting something unexpectedly beautiful somewhere that you have to notice it makes it more of a surprise, makes the smile linger a little longer. I absolutely adored the 365 Jars project, even though it never wrapped up, because it brought small, surprise art into so many people’s lives.
So, really, why small?
For all those reasons above. For practical reasons, because it’s easier to finish in time for daily posts, and it’s easier to store and ship and frame.
But most of all, because it works for me. The path from inspiration to art is smoother for me when I work small, because tiny work with details you have to peer at to discern just flows better than big, bold, and obvious most of the time.
Tentacle Deeps 32, detail 2, by Amy Crook
And yeah, I’m a lot like that with people, too.
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: info, why
All Out of Words
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
I’m all out of words for this Weds, regular posting will resume tomorrow as usual with more art.
Words are hard, man.
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Be the Change Bookmark
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Be the Change Bookmark by Amy Crook
For Words Wednsday this week, we have a very popular and, I think, applicable quote. I decided I wanted more beauty (and spirals!) in my world, so I finally stopped pining after the art I wanted to make and started making art instead.
I’m still working on some of the other changes, like seeing the complexity hiding in seemingly simple issues, but those can be a lot harder. Still, I think this bookmark would make an excellent reminder for someone wanting to see a change in their lives, that the only person who can move your life towards a better one is you.
Be the Change Bookmark, 8″x1.5″ mixed media on paper, nfs (sold).
Be the Change Bookmark, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, spirals! Below, the bookmark on my awesome free hardcover graphic novel from Free Comic Book Day this year. Another good reminder that art and words don’t have to be exclusive.
Be the Change Bookmark, with book, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Words Words Words
Tags: bookmark, mahatma gandhi, nfs, quote, sharpie, sold
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