Radiation Spill

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Radiation Spill by Amy Crook

I couldn’t resist a punny title for this piece, after everything that went into making it. I was working away on doing the darker pen-and-ink shading in the background of the tea circle with a quill dip-pen and bottle of ink when I smacked the bottle and dumped it onto the drawing, the table, and a bit on myself. Fortunately I salvaged all three — the tablecloth kept it off the carpet, my pyjamas are none the worse for being a bit inky, and the piece, as you can see, took on a different quality afterward.

I put some salt crystals in the ink pool just to see what happened, and then once it was all dry I finished with the parallel lines radiating out from the salt-encrusted portions of the tea circle. Then, I got a metallic gold colored pencil to put in radial lines coming out from the lighter pool of tea, half-erasing them to give a subtle, distressed feel. One of the things I really like about the quill-and-ink section is that the metal nib actually scratches into the paper, so you can still see the texture of the lines even in the big pool of ink.

I think the final effect is of something rising up over hills, the sun half-under a cloud perhaps, or some alien moon somewhere.

Radiation Spill, 5″x7″ mixed media on watercolor paper, $129 with free shipping.

Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: colored pencil, for sale, pen and ink, salt, tea