Posts Tagged ‘moon’
Blue Moon
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Blue Moon by Amy Crook
I chose soft blue pen and ink to pair with a rich, deep blue background, and then added salt in two different ways for texture. The brightest stars are the now-familiar salt pools, and there’s a scattering of dimmer ones formed by salt sprinkled onto the damp watercolor paint and brushed off once it dried. It was still too stark for me, so I went and found my tiny dot-card sample of interference blue and added haloes of half-there light around each salt pool and the moon, too, which you can barely see in the above scan, and better down in the detail shots below.
Blue Moon, 7″x5″ salt, pen & ink, watercolor and iridescent watercolor on paper, nfs (sold).
Blue Moon, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Above you can see three of the salt pools up close and personal, light glinting off their facets and a faint shadow of the interference blue. Below, the shimmer’s caught the light and you can see the brushed haloes around each large object, as well as the little starbursts of texture in the background of the deep blue sky.
Blue Moon, detail 2, by Amy Crook
And of course I took a photo of it framed, once I had it all ready for the show. In the sunlight, the background looks less black, though it’s still velvety-matte against the shimmering, sparkling stars and moon.
Blue Moon, framed watercolor by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: blue, blue moon, iridescent, moon, nfs, pen and ink, salt, sold, spirals, watercolor
2 Comments »
Moon Valley
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Moon Valley watercolor by Amy Crook
I’ve been working for many months now on the re-launch of Moon Valley Astrologer, and it’s finally up, huzzah!
I used watercolors to create both the Moon Valley header art and the background of stars, though as you can see there was some Photoshop tomfoolery on her final header to make the moon more like a proper orange harvest moon. Not to mention the cropping and text!
Moon Valley Astrologer header by Amy Crook
This site was a huge undertaking, but I’m really happy that it’s all come together in time, and I look forward to continuing to work with Celeste as the site continues to grow. And of course Michael, who does the heavy lifting of implementing my designs with best practices.
The painting itself went through several practice versions, including the very creepy-sky study Mountains of Madness. This final has a peaceful, luminous quality that I think really goes well with her site and personality. Although it’s not really a portrait of the actual Moon Valley where she lives, it conveys the feeling we were hoping for in subtle, inviting colors that we then echoed into the rest of the site.
Moon Valley, 14″x8.5″ watercolor on paper.
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, moon, moon valley astrologer, mountains, stars, watercolor
Moon Dark
Friday, January 6th, 2012
Moon Dark by Amy Crook
I really love how stark and simple this piece is. I was tempted to add more color to it, but in the end I think the copper moon and golden, salt-haoled stars are best on their own. In a simple black frame, it’s really striking, a slice of night for a desk, wall or bedside table.
Moon Dark, 5″x5″ watercolor and salt on paper, nfs.
Moon Dark, detail, by Amy Crook
Here you can see how the salt picked up a tiny bit of the iridescence from the paint, though mostly it sparkles all on its own.
Moon Dark, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: black, copper, gold, moon, nfs, salt, spirals, stars, watercolor
1 Comment »
Violet Midnight 2
Monday, September 19th, 2011
Violet Midnight 2 by Amy Crook
I’ve been thinking about making prints lately, and that’s led me to think about the way that the salt paintings are really unprintable — while a print of a normal piece is maybe half as cool as the real piece, but printing the salt pieces loses 90% of their awesomeness. So, with that in mind, I mixed up a slightly different mix of the violet-black from Violet Midnight and made a piece that only used the salt for visual texture rather than physical structure. There’s no shiny paint, no sparkly salt, just simple ink and watercolor.
I actually started it the same way I do any salt piece, with spirals in ink on paper, but this time I went straight to painting the background (which has little salt-made stars, done the traditional way by scattering salt onto the damp paint), then used plain water to pick up the ink and create halos of golden orange around the sun and larger stars.
Violet Midnight 2, 7″x5″ watercolor, pen and ink on paper.
Here’s how it looks in a frame, with my iPhone for scale:
Violet Midnight 2, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, moon, orange, pen and ink, salt, spirals, violet, watercolor
1 Comment »
Violet Midnight
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Violet Midnight by Amy Crook
Another image I keep revisiting, the moon glowing in the night sky. I went for a simple duochrome effect, the stars and moon drawn in orange ink, then the stars turned warm and golden when the salt and water were added. I used a dark blue-violet paint, which was making such fascinating shapes and shadows on its own as it pooled and flowed that I decided not to try to add any more stars and let the velvety paint stand on its own. Then I used a metallic copper watercolor to create the haloes around the moon and stars, the color an excellent match to the orange ink.
Violet Midnight, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, nfs.
This piece has a great contrast between the matte violet paint and shimmery, iridescent copper paint; between the flat ink and three-dimensional salt crystals; between the meticulous spiral pattern in the moon and the random, cloudy shapes in the sky.
Violet Midnight, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Here you can really see how the interplay of colors and textures up close.
Violet Midnight, detail 2, by Amy Crook
A simple black frame protects the salt, and makes the vivid colors really glow.
Violet Midnight, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: moon, nfs, orange, pen and ink, salt, sold, stars, violet, watercolor
3 Comments »
Midnight Blue
Thursday, July 21st, 2011
Midnight Blue, art by Amy Crook
This piece is a deliberate echo of last week’s intricate Cross the Sky, but both simpler and using the iconic blue and yellow color scheme from Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
The stars are monochromatic, first using spirals of orange-gold ink, and then a softer gold mixed to match. The moon is salt-free this time, inked in and then gently blurred with the gold watercolor to give it, too, a bright glow. The pure blue watercolor is bright and joyful, and it dried with a lovely texture in the denser areas. I thought about going in with some black to darken it up, but I like the cheery glow of the piece as is.
Midnight Blue, 7″x5″ pen & ink, salt and watercolor on paper.
The pure blue watercolor is bright and joyful, and it dried with a lovely texture in the denser areas. I thought about going in with some black to darken it up, but I like the cheery glow of the piece as is.
Midnight Blue, detail 1, by Amy Crook
You can see the gentle blurring of the moon below, and the line where a pool of pale gold paint dried.
Midnight Blue, detail 2, by Amy Crook
It looks quite nice in its frame, with the bright colors offset by the black wood.
Midnight Blue, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, moon, pen and ink, salt, stars, watercolor
1 Comment »
Haloed
Friday, July 1st, 2011
Haloed by Amy Crook
For this piece I used salt in a more traditional method to get the haloed starbursts in the blue-black sky. I overworked the section with the moon a little too much, so the paper tore in places, but I do like the overall effect and might try to reproduce it later with a bit more care.
Haloed, 9″x5″ mixed media on paper, nfs.
Haloed, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: moon, nfs, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
« Or Head Back That Way
More Art This Way »
