Posts Tagged ‘gold’
Gold Spirals 2
Friday, February 8th, 2013
Gold Spirals 2, abstract watercolor by Amy Crook
As promised on Monday, here’s the sequel to the first set of self-indulgent spirals. This one used the same 3 colors of gold, but a different duochrome accent. You can see how the layers build on one another from dark to light, with the duochrome adobe paint making a bright coppery splash in the upper right. Despite the sense of impending chaos, I find these rather peaceful to look at, a lovely mix of matte and metallic, deliberate and gestural.
Gold Spirals 2, metallic and duochrome watercolor on Arches cover black paper.
Gold Spirals 2, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, I’ve shot this from the corner so it looks almost like sunlight filtering down in swirls rather than rays, exaggerating the contrast from dark to light. Below, you can see this painting and its predecessor on my lovely antique desk. I’ve taken the glass out of the frames to help with glare, and you can see my iPhone hanging out for scale.
Gold Spirals 1 & 2, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: black paper, duochrome, for sale, gold, gold spirals, watercolor
Tentacle Deeps 46
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013
Tentacle Deeps 46 by Amy Crook
Something new for the tentacles today! I used the same metallic watercolors from yesterday’s Gold Spirals, though I painted the background on this a while ago, so they weren’t actually sharing a palette. Then tentacles as usual in an opaque Japanese greenish black, and finally the runes borrowed from The Stars Are Right series crawling in shining red up the surface of each, wrapping around and writhing right along with them. I had originally considered doing the runes in green, but I decided the dull glow of red glitter pen would work better for this painting.
Tentacle Deeps 46, 6″x4″ Japanese and metallic watercolor and glitter gel pen on Arches cover black paper.
Tentacle Deeps 46, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the way the runes curve and writhe with the tentacles, against the background that fades upward from rose to lemon gold. Below, you can see it tucked safely into a frame where it won’t harm anyone. Just don’t look too closely at the runes if you want to keep all of your sanity intact.
Tentacle Deeps 46, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: black paper, for sale, gold, red, stars are right, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
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Gold Spirals 1
Monday, February 4th, 2013
Gold Spirals 1, abstract watercolor by Amy Crook
You may have noticed the sad lack of posts last week, which was the result of my winter lull. November and December are such huge months of creativity for me that inevitably the fields needed to lie fallow and have a bit of a creative winter. Last Friday I finally pulled out some black paper and my set of 7 metallic paint powders (they turn to watercolor when water is added, but can also be mixed into oils or acrylics). Then I chose a range of 3 different golds — a warm rose gold, a rich yellow gold and a cool pale gold — and played around.
These are very self-indulgent spirals, loosely inspired by patterns I’ve seen around, the cuffs on the robe of the Theurgy Warden Mouse in my silly FB game addiction, the background pattern on a website I ran across, the colors of the paints themselves. I layered from dark to bright, warm to cool, and then came in at the end and added a very thin, subtle extra set of spirals in duochrome tropic sunrise, which is what’s giving off the green in the scan. It’s only really visible as different from the rest of the gold in the right light, but the scanner usually does a good job of picking that up.
Gold Spirals 1, 6″x4″ metallic and duochrome watercolor on Arches cover black paper.
Gold Spirals 1, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see a shot of the spirals in sunlight, each layer of metals catching the light just a little differently. Below, I’ve put it with the other self-indulgent spirals from last Friday, which you’ll see posted this Friday. If you decide you want them both, you can always email me to hold them for you.
Gold Spirals 1 & 2, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: black paper, duochrome, for sale, gold, gold spirals, watercolor
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Sunrise Crows
Monday, January 21st, 2013
Sunrise Crows by Amy Crook
The colors of this sunrise will seem familiar from Friday’s post, I hope, with gentler clouds and the birds to bring it out of abstraction. There’s still shimmery spirals in blues and golds, but they’re softer, fluffy clouds instead of stormy ones. The three birds are flying along not really in formation but just hanging out, the sunlight shining on and through their feathers, making them almost ghostly in the morning light.
Sunrise Crows, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper, nfs (sold).
Sunrise Crows, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the sunlight glimmering off the iridescent paint, and the tiny feathery details in the middle crow. The golden clouds get hints of rose and orange, while the blue ones go softly aquamarine. Below, you can see the piece hanging out on my writing desk in a frame, waiting to fly off to their new home.
Sunrise Crows, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Series and Books
Tags: blue, crow, duochrome, gold, iridescent, nfs, sold, spirals, sunrise, watercolor
Spiral Sunrise
Friday, January 18th, 2013
Spiral Sunrise by Amy Crook
This is one of those hard-to-capture pieces, made of cool sky blues and warm sunny golds that mix and mingle in a way that, weirdly, doesn’t actually make much green. Despite the fact that I’m never awake to see them, I wanted to capture a little bit of that feeling of sunrise, when the golden-warm light seeps upward and honey-dips the cool, night-blue clouds. There’s swirls of orangey-gold Duochrome Adobe, shimmery-cold Iridescent Moonstone, and three different metallic blues, all sharing the space with a warm yellow and sky blue background.
Spiral Sunrise, 7″x5″ watercolor on paper.
Spiral Sunrise, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the coppery Adobe, shimmery blue and night-tinted Moonstone catching the sunlight. Below, the pieces is tucked into a frame, hanging out with my iPhone.
Spiral Sunrise, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: blue, duochrome, for sale, gold, iridescent, spirals, sunrise, watercolor
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U is for Uncial
Thursday, January 10th, 2013
U is for Uncial, calligraphic illumination by Amy Crook
I guess there’s not a lot of Ulrichs or Ursulas out there, but if there are, this is the letter for them! I personally plan to use it to spell STFU until someone buys one of the letters. And, of course, you can always put U and I together and be a terrible pickup line.
Uncial is one of the classic calligraphy fonts, so I wanted to do a proper homage in warm earthy brown and cheerful new-leaf green. There’s just a touch of gold decoration in the fattest parts of the letter, giving it a lovely bit of sparkle.
U is for Uncial, 5″x5″ pen & ink, Japanese watercolor and glitter gel pen on paper.
U is for Uncial, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the gold glitter illuminating the letter with just a touch of sparkle. Below, you can revisit the last few weeks of letters, plus the lovely, flourishing F.
S, T, F & U, illuminated letters by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Illuminated Alphabet, Series and Books, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: alphabet, brown, calligraphy, for sale, glitter gel pen, gold, green, illumination, pen and ink, watercolor
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Tentacle Deeps 44
Tuesday, December 4th, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 44 by Amy Crook
More tentacles! More shiny paint! It must be Tuesday. I used three different paints here with very subtle effects to the camera, but that are quite obvious to the naked eye. The first was the background in a green that blends into the green paper until the light shifts and it becomes a bright gold. Then the tentacles are in two different shades that turn from green to bronze, different shades and different angles, but almost match.
The overall effect is mysterious and ancient, hinting at tarnished bronzes or possibly green tentacles covered in iridescent slime as they rise up through the golden sunlight, seeking who knows what.
Tentacle Deeps 44, 4″x6″ duochrome watercolor on green Crane & Co. paper.
Tentacle Deeps 44, detail, by Amy Crook
At most angles, I got the tentacles as all green or all bronze, but here you can see how the front layer is green and the back set bronze, and the background turns a warm, bright gold. Below, you can see it in its frame, ready to grace your bookshelf, desk, or wall.
Tentacle Deeps 44, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: bronze, crane and co, for sale, gold, green, iridescent, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
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