Posts Tagged ‘for sale’
Blood from a Stone 2
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
Blood from a Stone 2 by Amy Crook, $323
The vivid, rich fuchsia in this piece, against the backdrop of soft black-brown bloodstone watercolor, couldn’t help but remind me of my cartoon of Kristine and her awesome pink-streaked hair. Despite that, I decided to stick with the horror theme from Tuesday’s art and name it after the bloodstone paint.
Blood from a Stone 2, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, $323, framed, with free shipping.
The vivid pink — which is as close to red as I’ve gotten so far, using dense swirls of blood-red ink — makes this piece extra special hell to photograph. I do love how the salt crystals look like candy here, though I wouldn’t advise trying to lick them.
Blood from a Stone 2, detail 1, by Amy Crook
I totally dig the little ziggurat formations that I sometimes get, though I have no idea how to create them on purpose.
Blood from a Stone 2, detail 2, by Amy Crook
It looks great in its black frame, the pink is gorgeously vivid and the soft, matte paint provides a lovely contrast.
Blood from a Stone 2, framed, by Amy Crook, $323
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: bloodstone, for sale, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
Autumn Winds
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
Autumn Winds by Amy Crook, $299
I’m saving the Weeble this week for Friday, so instead you get a windy Wednesday. This piece uses tea, salt, watercolor, and pen and ink to create a whirlwind of color and shapes that reminded me of leaves tumbling around and around in a little eddy of breeze. I added in the rust-red Japanese maple leaves to add color and strengthen that impression.
Autumn Winds, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, $299, framed, with free shipping.
Here you can see a close-up of the spot where leaf and salt pool collide; I used my brown pen and very little color leeched out into the salt, making the pools a subtle addition of texture and sparkle rather than a focal color point.
Autumn Winds, detail, by Amy Crook
This piece looks great in its brown wooden frame, the colors really go well together. It will arrive at your door framed and in upcycled gift wrap, safely packaged for transit.
Autumn Winds, framed, by Amy Crook, $299
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: brown, for sale, leaves, orange, pen and ink, salt, tea, watercolor
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The Stars Are Right
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
The Stars Are Right by Amy Crook
The dark skies framing the glowing salt stars are painted in my newest art supply acquisition, paint made from actual Bloodstone. The color looks a bit more brownish to my eye, but the scanner definitely gave it a green tinge more like the actual stone looks before it’s ground up and made into paint. I have a number of the oil paints from this line (I love the Amazonite green), but this is my first foray into the watercolors, and I love the granular texture the paint gets as it dries.
The arrangement of green salt formations really reminded me of a constellation, and the color of course made me think of Cthulhu, especially with the Bloodstone watercolor to ground it, so that’s where the piece gets its name. After all, Cthulhu is merely snoozing until the stars align and new reign begins. In a strictly fictional manner, of course.
The Stars Are Right, 7″x5″ salt, pen & ink and watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
The Stars Are Right, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see a bit more of what the paint looks like in the sunlight, the warm brown-black setting off the cool green quite nicely. Below, I’ve got the piece in a simple black frame that protects the salt crystals and brings out the color in the bloodstone.
The Stars Are Right, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art
Tags: bloodstone, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
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Hibiscus Violet
Friday, August 12th, 2011
Hibiscus Violet, abstract art by Amy Crook, $99
Something about having painted the iridescent oils onto this watercolor postcard before gracing it with the hibiscus tea caused the tea to stop at a lovely violet mid-stage between the vibrant pink and soft blue of my other hibiscus pieces. I used salt to add some extra texture to the tea wash, but most of the texture comes from the peaks of dried oil paint.
This piece rides the edge of being busy, the harmonious color palette keeping it from being too random. I really like the way the paint shimmers in the light, but the areas of tea are a soft matte, which makes the paint seem to float above the background just a tiny bit.
Hibiscus Violet, 4″x6″ mixed media on watercolor postcard, $99, framed, with free shipping.
Here you can really see how the paint rises up from the page, and get a sense of the iridescent effect.
Hibiscus Violet, detail, by Amy Crook
I’ve put it in a simple black frame, you can see how the colors change depending on the light.
Hibiscus Violet, framed art by Amy Crook, $99
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, hibiscus, iridescent, oil paint, postcard, tea, violet
Iridescence 3
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
Iridescence 3, abstract art by Amy Crook, $333
I admit, I wanted to post both of these in the same week because they feel like different sides of the same coin to me. They use similar color schemes and techniques, but where Iridescence 2 is all soft glowing colors and indistinct shapes, Iridescence 3 is all sharp-edged spirals and visible brush strokes.
Even the haloes of complementary color around each salt pool are sharper and more distinct than in the previous piece, with more areas of pure white paper peeking through as a result. I’m not sure which of the two I prefer, though this is the one I’ve got out on display right now.
Iridescence 3, 7″x5″ mixed media on watercolor paper, $333, framed, with free shipping.
This is a closeup of the green salt pool in the lower left, so you can really see how the paint is layered in distinct circles with watercolor’s characteristic dark, sharp edges.
Iridescence 3, detail, by Amy Crook
The bold black frame works really well with the blue-black and violet-black in the darkest, sharpest of the paint swirls, and protects the fragile salt crystals from damage.
Iridescence 3, framed, by Amy Crook, $333
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: blue, for sale, green, hibiscus, iridescence, pen and ink, purple, salt, tea, watercolor
Iridescence 2
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
Iridescence 2, abstract art by Amy Crook, $333
Going in the opposite direction of yesterday’s art, this one expands the color palette along the entire cool end of the spectrum. I used green, aqua, blue and violet pens for my salt circles. Then I supplemented it with a layer of hibiscus tea in its low-saturation periwinkle shades. After that I used watercolors in matching hues, the dark indigo-black and violet softened by swirls of complementary colors around each salt pool. Finally, I used a little bit of salt to add texture to a few of the darkest places, giving the whole piece a layered complexity.
I decided to continue naming them as a series after one of my favorite of the salt pieces, Iridescence, because they had the same quality of seeming as though they were reflective without anything shiny, other than the sparkling salt crystals.
Iridescence 2, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, $333, framed, with free shipping.
You can see one of the wonderfully complex salt structures here, a little lopsided ziggurat of crystal formations saturated with ink and ever overdyed with paint. If you click on the image you can see it even bigger and really get a sense of the detail, though of course the actual circle is barely the size of a dime.
Iridescence 2, detail, by Amy Crook
The piece looks beautiful safely tucked into its frame, the soft lines and cool colors offset by the simple black wood.
Iridescence 2, framed, by Amy Crook, $333
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: blue, for sale, green, hibiscus, iridescence, pen and ink, purple, salt, tea, watercolor
1 Comment »
Hibiscus Blue 5
Monday, August 8th, 2011
Hibiscus Blue 5, abstract art by Amy Crook, $323
In this installment of my Hibiscus Blue series, I decided to go fully monochromatic by using the hibiscus tea rather than water to create my salt pools. Other than the signature, there’s no ink or watercolor in this it all, only the various shades of indigo created by the tea and its chemical reaction to the paper.
When I added the tea to the salt, it was fascinating to watch the droplets of liquid turn from a clear pinkish ruby, to a dark red, then almost an opaque black before drying the deep indigo you see here. It took a long time for both the chemical reaction and for the tea to fully evaporate, but the product is completely unique.
One random thing I discovered when I was working on these pieces — mosquitoes apparently find hibiscus tea quite tasty. I had one that kept circling and landing on the art, drinking from the shallow pool of tea (rather than me, thankfully). Since I didn’t want a bug-print in the middle of my painting, I had to let it go, though I think it fell prey to one of my cats shortly after.
Hibiscus Blue 5, 5″x7″ salt and hibiscus tea on paper, $323, framed, with free shipping.
Something about the way the salt and tea reacted caused the salt pools to form as circles of low, flat crystals with no large central formation, which then tended to dissolve easily when further tea was added to the page, creating irregular shapes of iridescent sparkle on the page.
Hibiscus Blue 5, detail, by Amy Crook
I think the simple black frame really sets off the organic, monochromatic shapes, giving structure to the abstract swirls of color. The color seems a bit more accurate here, too; my scanner tends to pick up the least bit of remaining pink in the tea that isn’t as visible to the naked eye — or at least not to my eyes.
Hibiscus Blue 5, framed, by Amy Crook, $323
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, hibiscus, hibiscus blue, salt, tea
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