Posts Tagged ‘crosshatching’
Salt Bookmark 2
Monday, February 13th, 2012
Salt Bookmark 2
by Amy Crook
It’s bookmark week! Lately when I tear giant sheets of art paper down to the sizes I like to work in, I’ve been saving the blank scraps, and this week I have enough finished bookmarks to make a week of it. I tried to do at least one in each of the styles I’ve been using, so there’s quite a variety, and they’re all for sale and a bookmark-friendly price. I’m not going to put them in the main art shop, but you can always go look at the collection (plus my older couple of contributions) by going to the bookmark tag. I’ve priced these nice and low so that you can get your hands on an Amy Crook original without breaking the bank, and have a bit of art to carry with you, keeping your place safe and beautiful.
Each one of these is an original, one-of-a-kind work of art, and I decided to start the week off with a salt painting. Barely-green salt and two colors of green glitter gel pen give this piece a shimmer that’s really appealing. The salt crystals are small enough not to get crunched off or damage your book, though they might wear over time, the way these things do.
Salt Bookmark 2, 1″x5″ ink-dyed salt and glitter gel pen on black paper, nfs, sold.
Salt Bookmark 2, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see the contrast between the pen that’s mostly glitter, and the pen that’s a fine metallic ink, both in color and density. The salt and its halo both glimmer in the sunlight. Below, you can see its size compared to a standard hardcover book.
Salt Bookmark 2, with book, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: black paper, bookmark, crosshatching, gel pen, nfs, pen and ink, salt, sold
L is for Lestrade
Friday, January 13th, 2012
L is for Lestrade by Amy Crook
Happy Friday the 13th! I bring you a fourth adorably morbid installment in my Baker Street Tinies Edward Gorey/Sherlock pastiche commissions. Lestrade is taken directly from H is for Hector in the original book, though Hector wasn’t texting at the time of his untimely demise.
I highly recommend clicking to see the image larger, if only so you can appreciate my absurdly painstaking work. The original is sold, but there are cards (and soon prints) available in my Etsy shop.
L is for Lestrade, 8.5″x5.5″ pen and ink on paper, sold.
Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: baker street tinies, crosshatching, edward gorey, lestrade, nfs, pastiche, pen and ink, sherlock
Old-Fashioned Ornaments, set 2
Friday, December 23rd, 2011
Old-Fashioned Ornaments, set 2, by Amy Crook
Pardon the terrible photography, I’ll try to take a better one when the sun’s back up. I finally managed to assemble my second set of old-fashioned paper ornaments, this one with slightly different art. I kept the star but hung it at a different angle, and then made Cthulhu himself and an Elder Sign (Lovecraft style) to go with it.
These ornaments are a huge pain to make, but it’s almost fun in that way where it appeals to my meticulous nature, so I might make a few extra sets next year. We’ll see!
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Tentacles
Tags: christmas, crosshatching, cthulhu, lovecraft, pen and ink
Old-Fashioned Ornaments, set 1
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Old-Fashioned Christmas Ornaments by Amy Crook
I participated in a handmade ornament exchange this year, and I decided to play to my strengths and make paper ornaments. I drew the original art myself, then printed it out both normally and flipped onto card stock so I could use spray-glue to make these double-sided ornaments. They were cut and hole-punched by hand, a ribbon added, and sent off to my exchange partner. I thought about coloring them somehow, but I liked the old-fashioned etching feel of the black-and-white on parchment-textured card stock, so I left them as is.
Categories: Daily Art
Tags: christmas, crosshatching, pen and ink
M is for Mycroft
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
M is for Mycroft by Amy Crook
The wonderful person who bought my other two Baker Street Tinies Edward Gorey/Sherlock pastiche pieces decided her collection wasn’t complete without Mycroft Holmes and DI Lestrade in the mix. This is the first of two more images she’s commissioned to match the first two, with yet more painstaking crosshatching. Mycroft takes directly after E is for Ernest in the original books, though the bell has become a Blackberry, and his faithful umbrella snuck its way into the picture.
I highly recommend clicking to see the image larger, if only so you can appreciate my absurdly painstaking work. Once Lestrade is done, I’ll have cards and prints available in my Etsy shop.
M is for Mycroft, 8.5″x5.5″ pen and ink on paper, sold.
Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: baker street tinies, crosshatching, edward gorey, mycroft, nfs, pastiche, pen and ink, sherlock
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Tentacle Deeps 18
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 18 by Amy Crook
More tentacles! I started this piece with salt that had already been gently used and had a coating of color on the outside, arranging them in a pattern that made me think of balloons floating up or perhaps fluff blowing off a dandelion. Once I got the idea to attach them to tentacles, however, I couldn’t resist! I used several shades of red and orange ink to create the tentacles, and of course my scanner hates red dyes and so a lot of the subtle gradation you can see in person is lost.
I decided to create the “deeps” part of the painting with simple crosshatching, electing to go with a fairly loose style which often ran into the tentacles, which makes them just a bit more unreal. I do wonder what the salt pools represent in this context, attached at the end of each vivid red tentacle. Egg sacs? Sensory organs? Lunch?
Tentacle Deeps 18, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper.
Tentacle Deeps 18, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: black, crosshatching, for sale, pen and ink, red, salt, tentacle deeps, watercolor
Jellyfish Deeps
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
Jellyfish Deeps by Amy Crook
Most of my salt pieces come together in an almost Zen-like way, with the long wait for the salt crystals to form and then a quick flurry of activity as I work with the results. This piece started out with the watercolor background, which took a long time to dry, giving the mixed paint time to separate out into its component colors in some places, while staying a murky purple-black in others. Pen and ink and salt came next, and then the jellyfish in their white gel pen currents swam in last.
It’s interesting how sometimes you can keep adding things to a piece until you ruin it, but other times you have to keep going until it gets past a certain point and turns itself around into something worthwhile. My friend Jeff (who paints wargaming miniatures) calls it “the ass point,” where the piece looks like total ass until you get it to a certain point, and then suddenly all its potential starts to shine through.
I find this point more intimidating than the blank page, since it represents a lot of lost work if it never gets past that point, but there’s a certain satisfaction to having pulled a piece past the ass point and turned it into something I’d want to admit I created.
Jellyfish Deeps, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper, nfs, (sold).
Jellyfish Deeps, detail, by Amy Crook
This one has a lot of detail that just doesn’t show up until you really look at it, from the colors glowing through the white gel pen to the strange salt pools and their range of crystal sizes and densities. You can see it in its frame, below, with my iPhone for size reference.
Jellyfish Deeps, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Tentacles
Tags: crosshatching, for sale, gel pen, jellyfish, pen and ink, salt, tentacles, watercolor
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