Posts Tagged ‘oil painting’
Work In Progress: Bone Orchard
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Bone Orchard, work in progress by Amy Crook
Hard drive problems today, so you get one of my WIPs instead of a proper art post. This one has a great story that I’ll tell another day.
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Works In Progress
Tags: oil painting, sky, wip
Ouroboros
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Ouroboros by Amy Crook
The touches of copper paint glow brightly in the photograph, as though the camera picked up the particles of shimmery metal in the paint.
Ouroboros was painted as another experiment, and is one of the abstracts I’m the most pleased with. The copper swirl of the snakes eating tails concludes with one escaping the endless spiral. The rough white shape on its periwinkle background calls to my mind a giant wing against a twilit sky, Quetzalcoatl overseeing his little cousins perhaps. The metallic paint highlights here and there throughout the painting in subtle and unsubtle ways to add dimension that goes well with the textured brush strokes.
Ouroboros, 16″x20″ oil on canvas.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird
Tags: copper, for sale, oil painting, ouroboros, snake
Untitled Experiment 1
Monday, May 17th, 2010
Untitled Experiment 1 by Amy Crook
I painted this a few years back when I was experimenting with a lot of different styles. In this one there’s a lot of visual texture, as well as a bit of gloss in the periwinkle rectangle from the painting medium that also gave it its transparency. People have asked me what it’s supposed to be or mean, and I have to admit that I just liked the way it looks. I like that something as simple as four overlapping rectangles gets a lot of complexity from little brush strokes, variations in color and opacity and even the softness of the edges.
This piece isn’t edge-finished yet, but I plan to paint over the white edges & staples with black so it could be hung without a frame. Well, I hang it without a frame anyway, but I’m special like that.
Untitled Experiment 1, 18″x24″ oil on canvas.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, gold, green, lilac, oil painting
Darklight
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Darklight by Amy Crook
This is an old piece that’s gone through a number of permutations. This version feels very much like a cave to me, with light coming in from above, and textured stalagmites growing up from the bottom to meet with the stalactites reaching down from the top. The painting is as much textural as visual, with very little of the canvas peeking through all the thick paint.
The edges have been painted black, so it’s ready to hang without a frame.
Darklight, 18″x24″ oil & gesso on canvas.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird
Tags: for sale, grey, oil painting, texture
Arch the Sky
Friday, April 30th, 2010
Arch the Sky by Amy Crook
Arch the Sky is one of my favorite pieces. It hangs above my work station in a simple silver frame, which echoes the silver streaks in the painting. This was painted without a reference, inspired by the art on the covers of the original paperback editions of Storm Constantine’s Wraethuthu series. There was something about the graceful art with its obvious brush strokes that really spoke to me.
I tried to really emphasize the contrast between the smooth curve of his back, and the rough texture of the background and foreground, while still allowing them to interact with each other. The rain-like streaks were put in at the very end with oil paint sticks, and really added to the effect by connecting the figure to the background.
There is a sense of worship in the figure’s expression, the peace of belonging to and reverence for nature, for the sky and rain and earth and the environment he’s in.
This piece is fully framed, and ready to hang.
Arch the Sky, 16″x24″, oil on artboard.
Categories: Nudes and Other Sexy Things, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: for sale, oil painting
Year of the Water Horse
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Year of the Water Horse by Amy Crook
One of the design projects I do every year is the Starcycles Calendar, a dayplanner-style appointment book with an astrological bent by Georgia Stathis. For me, the covers are always my favorite part, and something I look forward to every year. 2002 was year of the Water Horse in Chinese astrology, and at the time Georgia had a guest writer who contributed an essay to the book. We were still doing them in print with these three-panel coves that wrapped around, and so when I found this giant 18″x36″ canvas, I just knew I had to use it for that project.
When we were discussing ideas for the cover, I kept thinking of the various stories and legends of horses or unicorns born out of the foam of the ocean, and being the good sport she is, Georgia let me run with it. I first painted the sunny beach in blues and sandy browns with its white, foam-capped surf coming in, and then added the mysterious watery horses with soft pastels on top of the canvas, once it was dry.
Year of the Water Horse, 18″x36″, oil and pastel on canvas.
Above is a study I did of just the horses, and below you can see a photo of the painting before I put the horses in.
Categories: Floating Gallery
Tags: beach, horse, nfs, oil painting, sold, starcycles
Work in Progress: Fallen Angel
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Fallen Angel by Amy Crook
This piece is mostly done, but then, I thought it was complete many years ago, too. Through some trick of chemistry (I have my suspicions, but there’s no real way to know now) the paint began to flake off, foreground from background in big crackling curls. After a lot of contemplation, I decided I really liked the effect on the wings, but it didn’t go well on the figure — and I like to think my figure painting skills have improved since the first round.
I tried to think of a more original title for the piece, but I always think of an angel cast out of heaven, slowly decaying in the trap he’s fallen into, piece by piece. He’s losing his divinity, but hasn’t quite fully stepped into our reality, either, lacking the warmth and depth of a person.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Works In Progress
Tags: angel, blue, oil painting, wip
« Or Head Back That Way
More Art This Way »
