Posts Tagged ‘for sale’
Red Irony
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Red Irony, front cover, by Amy Crook
I have a few of these little folded over pieces of thick, stiff watercolor paper just waiting for me to find something to do with them. This first one had its front painted weeks before the last of its inside panels got their decorations.
When you unfold the first panel of the little square, you get a different Zen circle and surprise tentacles:
Red Irony, detail, by Amy Crook
The inner circle is smaller and a little more broken, and the tentacles seem to be reaching for it, toward some mysterious end.
When you open it further you find that the tentacles are now reaching for a mysterious blue-black circle of paint, accompanied by an appropriate Lovecraft quote.
Red Irony, inside panels, by Amy Crook
From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.
-H.P. Lovecraft
The starting F has been decorated with twining red tentacles, this panel done with pen and ink in matching shades of blue-black and blood red, rather than watercolor like the rest of the piece.
Red Irony, 10″x4.25″ watercolor and pen and ink on watercolor paper.
This piece is unframed, and really is more suited to standing snuggled up with old books where it can surprise the unwary, and hopefully make them smile at its odd message. The paper is quite stiff and the materials archival, so it should be able to withstand a bit of wear and tear, though I’d still keep it out of reach of little fingers.
For completion, here’s what the back of the piece looks like, though I may add a signature to the blank back panel before it gets slipped away into storage with the rest of my watercolor pieces.
Red Irony, outside panels, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: calligraphy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, red, tentacles, watercolor, zen circle
Eye of the Moon
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Eye of the Moon by Amy Crook
The same day I did the tea washes, I did a few watercolor washes as well, just simple pale circles to do something with later. When I took this one back out the other night, it reminded me of an eye, but also of a pale, cool moon floating in its own gentle glow. The paper around the circle is a bit warped, giving it a touch of subtle halo, which you can just barely see in the image above.
I used the same crosshatch pattern as I did with Blood Moon, only this time I used a deep blue-black rather than the bright red. Instead of adding texture with a contrasting color of ink, I put an abstractly slitted pupil into the center of the white “eye” that gave the whole image an ornate feeling. The high contrast between background and foreground gives this piece much more deliberateness, and this thinner sketchbook paper also held the ink better, with less bleeding.
Eye of the Moon, 7″x5″ watercolor and pen & ink on paper.
I took a progress shot with my iPhone right after I started, so you can see the texture on the wash without the interference of the pattern.
Eye of the Moon, work in progress by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: blue, crosshatching, eye, for sale, moon, pen and ink, watercolor
Tentacle Deeps 12
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 12 by Amy Crook
I think I may be just about done with the tentacle series, so in a few weeks I’ll have to think of something else to do with my Tuesdays.
This one got two layers of washes, one darker than the other, so I decided to keep the tentacles themselves to a single, matte black layer, contained entirely within the darker wash, at least at the bottom. One of them does break out of the top, as tentacles are wont to do. The rich colors of this were lost somewhat in the scanning process (I do seem to say that a lot, don’t I?), but this handmade (not by me, though) postcard looks great in a simple black frame.
Tentacle Deeps 12, 4″x6″ watercolor on handmade postcard.
Tentacle Deeps 12, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, tentacle deeps, turquoise, watercolor
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Innocent Stars
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Innocent Stars by Amy Crook
This piece started out as an experiment to see how the three different pens — blue, green and purple — would fare when wetted with the salt-and-water technique I used for Water Lilies 1. As you can see, the blue hardly bled into the salt at all, the purple let out some pink but stayed largely unblurred, and the green dissolved almost completely. I let it sit for a while on my bookshelf while I pondered what to do next, and eventually I decided that the swirling bright spots reminded me a bit of bright stars.
I mixed up a dark purple-blue-black and layered it into the background in messy, childlike strokes. Then I scattered some smaller salt granules over the wet paint and let it form another, softer set of stars as it dried.
Innocent Stars, 7″x5″ salt, watercolor and pen and ink on watercolor paper, $222 framed with free shipping.
The piece is framed and hanging out in my living room at the moment, just waiting to find a new home.
Innocent Stars, framed, by Amy Crook
Below you can see a couple of close-up details of the salt-and-ink “stars.” My camera was having trouble with the colors, though, so the first one is much more accurate than the second.
Innocent Stars, detail, by Amy Crook
Innocent Stars, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: for sale, framed, night, pen and ink, purple, salt, sky, stars, watercolor
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Tentacle Deeps 11
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 11 by Amy Crook
I tried something a little different with today’s tentacles, and I think the results are really interesting.
The background was a wash of periwinkle gouache with large already-paint-stained salt crystals set int the wet paint and left to dry. The resulting spots seemed to me like excellent starting points for some tentacles, so it looks like they’re each emerging from their own interdimensional portal. I went for a lighter color of tentacles, a deep green instead of the opaque black or blue-black I usually use, giving the whole thing a sense less of depths than heights.
Tentacle Deeps 11, 5″x7″ watercolor and salt on watercolor paper.
Below you can see a close-up of the way the paint and salt reacted to each other, and the way they layered when a tentacle was painted over one of the salt “portals.”
Tentacle Deeps 11, detail, by Amy Crook
And here you can see it in its lovely new frame:
Tentacle Deeps 11, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, periwinkle, salt, tentacle deeps, watercolor
Water Lilies 2
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Water Lilies 2 by Amy Crook
This is currently sitting in a frame on my bookshelf next to Water Lilies 1, and the two of them catch the morning sun beautifully. The salt “flowers” have a soft sparkle to them that really draws the eye to their three-dimensional shapes. I especially like the way the electric blue spirals dissolve into a soft but very clear cyan that tints the salt crystals.
The nerd in me also likes that the lily pads came out with a very Pac-Man
Water Lilies 2, 7″x5″ watercolor and salt on watercolor paper, $199 framed with free shipping.
Water Lilies 1 & Water Lilies 2, framed, by Amy Crook
Water Lilies 2, detail, by Amy Crook
Water Lilies 2, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, framed, salt, watercolor
Curiosity
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
Curiosity by Amy Crook
My scanner can really take the sparkle out of anything, I think. This piece in real life is pure play — bright, cheery cyan with clusters of sparkling salt crystals, and even a single shining confetti star in the center of the “o” in curiosity.
I was experimenting once again with the various materials, salt and water, ink and paint, and by drawing my spirals in the still-wet paint I created these fascinating shapes. Then I put salt in the spirals and dripped more water over them, and it spread and pooled and dried in a glittering pattern. When it had dried, I thought the piece needed something, so I added the criss-cross stitching down the righthand side, and the word “curiosity” that seemed to fit so well with how the piece came to life.
Curiosity, 5″x7″ watercolor, salt, pen & ink and confetti star on watercolor paper.
You can get a better idea of the way the salt crystals look with this shot I took before it got its final touches:
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: blue, for sale, pen and ink, salt, spirals, watercolor
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