Posts Tagged ‘nfs’
Tentacle Planet
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
Tentacle Planet by Amy Crook
I guess I’ve just had tentacles on the brain lately! The first day I was experimenting with salt, I painted up the central circle of opaque gouache, which ended up looking a bit like Mars to me when it dried. The salt makes the pigments powder on the page, and you can see a little smear of paint-dust in the upper left from where I brushed it away.
I wasn’t satisfied with just the one layer of paint, though, so I watered down the same pure pigment into a light wash and painted in the halo of tentacles, sprinkling salt carefully at the base of each one, which further affected the surface of the circle around the edges as well.
Tentacle Planet, 5″x5″ Japanese watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Tentacles
Tags: brown, nfs, planet, salt, sold, tentacles, watercolor
1 Comment »
Twining Snakes Moleskine Volant
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
Twining Snakes Volant, detail, by Amy Crook
This bright green Moleskine Volant notebook has been hand-decorated with a pair of twining snakes using Sharpie markers. A black snake is biting his own tail in a double-looped ouroboros while his green friend slithers suggestively through his loops.
Moleskine’s colorful notebooks are ideal for customization, turning the high-quality book into a work of art in which to wrap your ideas. The acid-free ruled paper is a creamy ivory color, and a delight to write on. The large size Volants have 96 pages between their soft vinyl covers. The design is in permanent Sharpie, and should last as long as the notebook it’s drawn on.
Twining Snakes, 5″x8.25″ customized Moleskine Volant notebook, nfs (sold).
Twining Snakes Moleskine Volant by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: green, moleskine, nfs, sharpie marker, snakes, sold
4 Comments »
Yarr! Bonus Michael
Friday, March 25th, 2011
Yarr! Bonus Michael by Amy Crook
I turned Michael into a cartoon a while back, and since he’s been a completely awesome programmer for me, I couldn’t resist tossing this little 10-minute bonus doodle into his package. I’m reliably informed he doesn’t actually have a wooden leg, he just wanted his avatar to be more piratey.
And really, who wouldn’t want to be more piratey? Well, aside from Ninjas…
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: all rights reserved, cartoon, nfs, pen and ink
Impact
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Impact by Amy Crook
Paper and paint both matter a lot to how the salt affects the work, and this one actually went through several iterations of paint and salt. The more opaque of the Japanese sumi-e inks don’t seem to react as dramatically, but you can get some subtle texturing out of it. The more transparent inks run and pool, but this paper has a different absorbency than the one I used for Salt Cell, so the paint tends to dry much faster, giving it lest time to change the landscape of the colors.
Impact, 7″x5″ watercolor on watercolor paper, sold.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird
Tags: blue, circle, green, nfs, salt, sold, watercolor
2 Comments »
Weeble Wednesday: Kristine Beeson
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
Kristine Beeson Cartoon by Amy Crook
Kristine Beeson, also known as kadyellebee on Etsy, is a wonderful knitter of shawls and other lovely things. When our paths crossed and she expressed a wistful interest in being made into a Cartoon, I took the opportunity to offer her barter — a shawl for a cartoon! She helped me choose the perfect yarn (a warm, lightweight blackberry-colored cotton), and got right to work so I’d have my shawl while winter was still upon us. I was a bit slower, but I’ve finally finished up her cartoon (alas, I was waiting on marker refills).
She sent me some great photos of herself and her cheeky grin, not to mention her favorite outfit, and despite a bit of a struggle to get my scanner to accept the idea of hot pink, this is a pretty good representation of her and her gorgeous pink-striped hair. She asked for her ubiquitous iPhone, but I couldn’t resist slipping some pink knitting needles into the image, as well.
The pattern she knitted for me is called wren, and you can see her very own wren shawl on her cartoon above, in a soft mossy green that goes great with her eyes. Mine’s a dark purple that’s not quite black, but looks great where it lives on my blue chair, waiting for me to get cold while I’m working. It’s just light enough for me to forget I’m wearing it, but it keeps the cold off my aching shoulders.
Wren Shawl by Kristine Beeson
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: all rights reserved, cartoon, copic marker, nfs, pen and ink, weeble
7 Comments »
Salt Cell
Monday, March 21st, 2011
Salt Cell by Amy Crook
I’ve been doing more experiments with my paints lately, and today’s piece is a very simple one done using a single color of paint and a small handful of coarse Kosher salt. The paint, originally in a fairly even wash, pooled and patterned in a way that makes me think of cellular structure under a microscope. And to think, I once had a biology lab instructor tell me I ought to go into scientific illustration.
Salt Cell, 5″x5″ watercolor on watercolor paper, sold.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: green, nfs, salt, sold, watercolor
4 Comments »
Tentacle Deeps 5
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 5 by Amy Crook
And then there were five! I’m not sure how this morphed into such a big series, but I’ve enjoyed playing with the variations on a theme.
I did this one the same day I inked all the tiny details in my Gorey-esque illustration from Monday’s post, and I used the same tiny, long lines in the background here as in the background of John’s wallpaper. In this piece, the original wash was a very soft red-to-orange fade, so I chose my vivid orange fountain pen to carefully draw in the texture in the background. The pen is nearly the same color as the border of pooled watercolor around the top edge, so it really meshed well with the paint and brought the whole piece together.
I think this might be my favorite of the series so far.
Tentacle Deeps 5, 5″x5″ pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper.
Tentacle Deeps 5, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: nfs, orange, pen and ink, tentacle deeps, watercolor
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