Posts Tagged ‘ink’
Liminal Autumn
Thursday, September 3rd, 2015
Liminal Autumn by Amy Crook
The leaves have fallen but the cold hasn’t yet set in. Autumn still reigns, with fluffy October clouds rolling across the sky on playful breezes. Winter is just around the corner, but for now there’s still sunshine and a hint of comfort lingering around the edges of the world.
These trees have even more detail than my usual horizons, because the trees are painted in a gorgeous brown ink instead of a stark black. You can really see the texture of bark and the way the light shines through the branches, strong enough at the edge of fall still to make them seem almost translucent against the cloudy blue sky.
Liminal Autumn, 8″x4″ ink and watercolor on Fluid watercolor paper.
Liminal Autumn, detail, by Amy Crook
Above, you can see the intricate branches of the intertwining trees. Below, the painting is temporarily in a frame, waiting to be claimed and loved.
Liminal Autumn, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Floating Gallery, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: autumn, for sale, horizons, ink, tree, watercolor, winter
Ink Tests
Wednesday, May 27th, 2015
bookmark in J. Herbin Cacao du Brésil ink by Amy Crook
I recently took a few bottles of ink off a friend who was thinning out her art supplies (which makes me sound far more generous and less grabbyhandsy than I really was), and I thought I’d share a few of the tests I did.
First up, above, is a bookmark painted with the lovely brown, which gave me rich layered colour in the trees.
sketch in J. Herbin Gris Nuage ink by Amy Crook
Second we have one of the two delicious greys she sent me, this one a lighter, almost lavendery grey that also layered interestingly, though never got very dark. Below is the real treat, a sample size of the gold-flecked Stormy Grey, which I used to doodle this little city in my sketchbook.
sketch in J. Herbin Stormy Grey ink by Amy Crook
I really like them, though I think they all will do better on higher quality paper than my test swatches here. There’s going to be some Stormy Grey in this month’s Floating Gallery (as well as another experiment using a fourth bottle of ink from her stash). Get on my list if you want to see it first!
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
Effervescent
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
Effervescent by Amy Crook, $222
The pattern of the salt pools in this one reminded me of bubbles rising up through soda, so I went a sort of wacky Wonka route and made it grape soda purple fading up to blue. The bubbles are cola ink brown, bubbly limeade green and of course the blue goes well with the grape itself. Even the background wash is bubbly with salt texture.
Each brown bubble was made by dropping water over a salt crystal that had been coated in ink for another project, and so each one has a core of dark brown ink that somehow became sediment rather than going back to liquid. The other colors, too, were from paint-infused salt, I keep a little bowl of salt crystals that I’ve used in previous projects and I pulled out a selection for this painting, though have now dissolved completely and recrystallized straight onto the paper.
Effervescent, 5″x7″ salt, ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, $222 framed with free shipping.
You can see the playful combination of colors below, as well as the texture both visual and physical, and a little bit of the whimsical sparkle.
Effervescent, detail, by Amy Crook
And here it is in its frame, the salt crystals safely tucked behind glass.
Effervescent, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, ink, salt, watercolor
Golden Pools
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Golden Pools by Amy Crook
When I started this piece, I’m sure I had intentions of doing something else once the water dried and salt spots formed, but the end result was so serene, I decided to keep it as is. It’s so subtle that my scanner did a terrible job with it, actually, so I had to take a photograph instead.
Golden Pools, 5.5″x4.25″ pen, ink and salt on card.
This is what it looked like early on, when the salt had mostly dissolved but the water hadn’t pulled all of the ink out of the paper yet, so you can still see the orangey-gold spirals faintly inside each drop:
Golden Pools, in progress, by Amy Crook
You can see how the one droplet slipped up over the embossed edge of the card, even though I tried to keep it away. The resultant pool of golden salt stayed in the same spot, gently breaking the borders of the piece:
Golden Pools, detail, by Amy Crook
This last photo encompasses the feeling of the piece for me, the depth and detail that’s hiding in the minimalist presentation:
Golden Pools by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: ink, salt
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