Three for a Girl

Friday, February 5th, 2016

Three for a Girl, 6″x6″ watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper

A third installment to one of my favorite series of last year, Three for a Girl continues the Counting Crows theme with another eerie tree and ghostly figure.

The titular girl is almost lost in the mists, fog drifting through and obscuring everything but the tree and its trio of visitors.

Three for a Girl, detail, by Amy Crook

Above, you can see how the off-black paint granulates into beautifully textured mist, pigment pooling in the hollows of the watercolor paper. Below, the painting is waiting in a frame, a season and a mood in one small, eerie package.

Three for a Girl, framed art by Amy Crook

Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: bloodstone, counting crows, crow, nfs, sold, tree, watercolor

Two for Joy

Friday, June 5th, 2015

Two for Joy by Amy Crook

If this painting feels familiar, that’s because it’s a relative of last month’s One for Sorrow 2. The figure this time is more androgynous, and their clothing seems to be blowing against the prevailing winds that bend the trees to their will.

Just like its predecessor, this piece has a lot of soft, pale fog that gets lost when it’s reproduced, but adds a lot of rich texture to the original. You can see it in the trees in the detail photo, a delicate sweep of wind moving across the paper grain.

Two crows sit low on a branch in the lee of the wind, harbingers of some unnamed joy. Whose joy and about what is left up to the imagination of the viewer, or perhaps it belongs to the apparition staring blankly back out of the page.

Two for Joy, 6″x6″ watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.

Two for Joy, detail, by Amy Crook

Above, you can see the staticky figure staring back at you, his clothing seemingly blown by an opposing wind. Below, I’ve displayed the painting in a temporary frame, where it awaits its new home.

Two for Joy, framed art by Amy Crook

Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: bloodstone, counting crows, crow, nfs, sold, tree, watercolor

One for Sorrow 2

Friday, May 8th, 2015

One for Sorrow 2 by Amy Crook

I’m not entirely happy with the title One for Sorrow 2, but this painting definitely needed that name, prior use notwithstanding. The single baleful crow sits high in the branches of the windswept tree, its image smeared out into the fog like an apparition, as though the bird is more of a ghost than the figure below.

There is a lot of very pale detail in the trees and sky which is hard to photograph, but shows up beautifully in person and adds another layer to the sense of windswept, foggy unreality. The detail photo shows a little of the sky, but it’s hard to spot on the sun-drenched page.

The lovely, textured greys are also not entirely black, but have a mix of reddish brown bloodstone in them to give the whole piece a more organic, grounded atmosphere.

One for Sorrow 2, 6″x6″ watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.

One for Sorrow 2, detail, by Amy Crook

Above, you can just barely see the texture in the fog, a hint of wind and motion and shapes looming large and distant. Below, you can see the piece in a temporary frame, just waiting to haunt your house.

One for Sorrow 2, framed art by Amy Crook

Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: bloodstone, counting crows, crow, nfs, sold, tree, watercolor