Posts Tagged ‘for sale’
Spiral Lakes
Thursday, April 19th, 2012
Spiral Lakes, abstract art by Amy Crook, $269
This piece is like the inverse of Spiral Islands, with the rich French Ultramarine mixed straight into the salt-saturated solution. To me it looks like a series of thermal lakes that have burst and melted through a thick layer of ice, crusted around the edges and looking down into the deep blue of the ocean, with little floes of ice still floating, sparkling on the surface.
I admit I considered painting in the white the way I did with Islands, but this arctic image came to me so I let well enough alone this time.
Spiral Lakes, 5″x7″ salt and watercolor on paper, $269 framed, with free shipping.
Spiral Lakes, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up of one of the spirals. I really like the way the paint pulls away from the edges of the pool so the color is richer in the middle and fades toward the salt crystals. Below, you can see the lakes in their frame, which you could tuck into a bookshelf or decorate a wall somewhere with a bit of gorgeous blue and unexpected sparkle.
Spiral Lakes, framed art by Amy Crook, $269
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: blue, for sale, salt, watercolor
Tentacle Deeps 33
Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 33, watercolor by Amy Crook
Today’s tentacles are muted, odd, and not really opaque. The background is something I painted ages ago and then wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with it, until this week I decided that I’d use some blue-violet I’d dulled with black would make good tentacles to go with the grey-green. I watered the color down a bit for the front ones to get some extra visual texture, and then even more for the back row.
I’ve been looking at some of my older tentacles recently, and I liked the rougher, less perfected shapes in Tentacle Deeps 2, so I decided to revisit those here. Everything’s deliberately wobbly and out of balance, with angular spirals and long, reaching arms. I wonder what’s up there that they’re so keen to get to.
Tentacle Deeps 33, 5″x7″ watercolor on paper.
Tentacle Deeps 33, detail, by Amy Crook
You can really see the texture in the detail shot, the paper and the old paint underneath the new, giving it all a shadowy, desaturated feel. Below, you can see the tentacles happy in their frame, reaching forever for the sky.
Tentacle Deeps 33, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
Spiral Splash
Friday, April 6th, 2012
Spiral Splash, abstract art by Amy Crook, $299
This is another of those pieces that looks different from every angle. From the three dimensional salt to to the iridescent paint, it catches the light and the eye differently depending on how you look at it.
In this case I painted in the swishy, splashy gold spirals, and then added the blue-infused salt water in a bit of controlled chaos. Then I repeated the experiment with blue spirals, so some of the shapes are rimed in cold blue while others are edged in gilt.
Spiral Splash, watercolor and salt on paper, $299 framed, with free shipping.
Spiral Splash, detail 1, by Amy Crook
You can really see the difference in the blue and gold paints in the shot above, with the cold, grainy blue making the left side look like it’s frosted over, while the shining gold on the left adds a rich warmth to the shape on the right. Below, I took a photo of the whole thing from the top down. I especially like the progression of color in the shape in the lower right, the way you can really see that the blue paint settled into the center of each shape while the gold floated to the edges.
Spiral Splash, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: black paper, blue, for sale, gold, iridescent, salt, watercolor
Spiral Islands
Thursday, April 5th, 2012
Spiral Islands by Amy Crook
This is actually the first piece I started with my salt-saturated solution, before adding the blue paint to the bottle. I was experimenting with the delivery, which is much less precise, trying to make spirals to go with the messy scribbled-pen spirals already on the page. You can see where they intersected, the salt water picked up the brown pigment from the black ink and left the rest behind, giving those pools an orange cast.
After I painted in the blue-black background, the whole thing reminded me of a cluster of islands in some turbulent ocean. I especially like how some of the salt spirals are nearly intact, while others are barely a suggestion of broken lines.
Spiral Islands, mixed media on paper.
Spiral Islands, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a close-up of just one of the salt spirals and how it intersects with the ink spiral beneath it. The two separate pools got different amounts of ink infused into them, so the lower one is visibly orange while the upper curl is barely off white.
Below, I’ve taken a shot of the lay of the land, as it were, and this shining, mysterious little archipelago makes a great computer wallpaper.
Spiral Islands, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Once it’s safely tucked into its frame, it feels even more map-like to me. Here there be dragons, I guess?
Spiral Islands, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers
Tags: black, blue, for sale, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
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Tentacle Deeps 32
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 32 by Amy Crook
This tentacle painting is much more subtle and mysterious than the usual, covered almost entirely in salt crystals. There’s a dark violet-black background hiding under all that salt, and then iridescent violet tentacles. Then I inundated the whole thing with my potion of salt, water and paint. After it dried, I went in with black ink and brought the tentacles back up out of the sparkling murk I’d created.
The effect in the end is both murky and sparkly at the same time, and really does make me think of deep R’lyeh where mysteries slumber, waiting to rise up through the blue deeps to the surface.
Tentacle Deeps 32, 5″x7″ salt, sumi-e ink, and watercolor on paper.
Of course it’s terribly hard to catch the feel of this art in a scan or photo, so much of it changes with the light and angle, but I’ve taken some detail photos to try.
Tentacle Deeps 32, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above is the usual photo from the bottom of the tentacles, but this time it almost looks like an 80s fantasy movie set after they applied all the glitter. You can see the swirling colors and shapes, and the tentacles dark and mysterious running through it. Below, I took a shot of the longest tentacle and the varying textures in and around it. I liked the way that one turned out with its shining squares on the left and sand-like salt crystals to the right, so I made you yet another wallpaper. Don’t you feel special?
Tentacle Deeps 32, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: blue, for sale, iridescent, salt, sumi-e ink, tentacle deeps, tentacles, violet, watercolor
Blue Moon 2
Monday, April 2nd, 2012
Blue Moon 2, abstract art by Amy Crook
Even though this piece shares a name and some materials with my first Blue Moon, that’s about all they have in common. The blues in this are all muted except for the vivid French Ultramarine moon itself, and even the little halos of iridescent paint became quite subtle painted wet-in-wet.
I made the 7 stars the usual way with paint and salt and water, but the moon was part of my newest experiment where I put paint into some water I had already saturated with as much salt as I could boil into it. Pretty much all of this week’s art was made with this technique, for some fascinating results. Sparkly ones!
Blue Moon 2, 5″x5.25″ salt and watercolor on watercolor paper.
Blue Moon 2, detail 1, by Amy Crook
You can see little particles of the iridescent paint around the borders of the halo, and I thought the shot of the moon itself came out so well I made a wallpaper for you. Yes, you.
Below, you can see the lightning-like formations around the edges of some of the pools, and the way I brushed the outer rim of the salt pools with the blue-black paint, which sinks into the crevices and gives it deep shadows.
Blue Moon 2, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Since this one isn’t quite square, I haven’t framed it yet, but it’ll get its lovely black frame before it goes to live in its new home.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books
Tags: black, blue, blue moon, for sale, moon, salt, watercolor
Pattern Recognition
Friday, March 30th, 2012
Pattern Recognition, abstract art by Amy Crook
This piece started out as tiny bead-like droplets of salt-infused ink on the paper. The salt crystals that grew were small and black, evenly spaced across the ink circles, and the ink was actually coating the salt so they hardly sparkled at all. I took a wet brush and idly doodled the uppermost right-hand pattern by re-wetting the ink and drawing it out in three long, swooping lines. Using water to separate this ink shows off its complex color structure of blue and orangey-brown, and so I used the same method to make patterns around the rest of the ink dots as well.
Since I gently dissolved some of the ink off of the salt crystals, they regained a tiny bit of sparkle, so this image that could have been boring black and white had I made it with pen and ink, has a three-dimensional, full-color palette of tiny details. Sometimes it’s worth it to do things the ridiculously complicated way.
Pattern Recognition, 5″x5.25″ ink and salt on paper, $234 framed, with free shipping.
The detail shot below shows off both the color variation in the “black” ink, and the dull shine of the tiny salt crystals. To give you a sense of scale, the entire design in this photo is about the size of a quarter.
Pattern Recognition, detail, by Amy Crook
I haven’t yet framed this piece, it’s just a tiny bit too big for a 5″x5″ frame, so it’ll get mounted into a larger 8″x8″ frame before going to its new home.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: brush and ink, for sale, ink, salt
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