Posts Tagged ‘orange’
Orange Face sketch
Sunday, March 18th, 2012
Orange Face sketch by Amy Crook
This is actually a virulent orange in my wee sketchbook, but by desaturating it a little bit, you can see some of the brushstrokes that a super-bright orange hides on a monitor. I sketched this with a sumi-e brush and the orange paint leftover from making my goldfish, using the pause screen on whatever DVD I was watching as a very loose reference.
I’m pleased that, although the paper buckled some, the paint didn’t bleed through onto the next page.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: nfs, orange, sketch, watercolor
Implied Goldfish
Thursday, March 15th, 2012
Implied Goldfish, watercolor by Amy Crook, $399
This is the sort of art that just makes me feel a little bit more delighted with the world when I look at it. Happy little goldfish swim around partially camouflaged by the white paper, while rings of sparkly blue gel pin circle the three-dimensional salt formations. Are they stones? The first fat drops of rain? Strange portals to another world? The implications are endless.
Implied Goldfish, 7″x5″ mixed media on paper, $399 framed, with free shipping.
Now here’s where I admit something very silly: today’s art is inspired by one of my mismatched cereal bowls. Really they’re rice bowls, but I mostly use them for Cheerios.
Omnomnom Fishies!
I buy a lot of my dishes in Japantown and this is no exception. Maybe one of these days I’ll do a giant picspam on a Weds of a bunch of them. There’s kitties!
Below, you can see the sparkly salt and glittery pen next to the totally unconcerned fishies. The color’s a bit off, because this is the paper my camera likes to think is secretly red (hint: it’s not).
Implied Goldfish, detail, by Amy Crook
And finally we have the usual framed art, a peaceful little pond to sit on your desk or tuck into a tiny bit of wall space.
Implied Goldfish, framed art by Amy Crook, $399
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals
Tags: blue, fish, for sale, glitter gel pen, orange, salt, watercolor
Tentacle Deeps 27
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
Tentacle Deeps 27 by Amy Crook
We have ghostly tentacles writhing against a textured wash of sunset red, orange and gold for our Tentacle Tuesday. I really love all the texture and detail on this one, so I made a wallpaper to share. I make these sort of huge and not particularly specific on the size so that you can just tell your computer to fill the screen and it won’t matter if some of one edge or another gets cropped. I also make the tentacles go left to right because that’s what works for me on my screen, I almost always have certain windows open so I mostly see a few little stripes of background at the left and right edges.
I really like the way the textured paper here created amazing edges on the wash, and then on top of that I used salt in the more traditional manner to create the almost flamelike blossoms of paint in the background. I was so in love with it, I decided to paint the tentacles in washed-out, transparent black to let the background really show through. The smaller, fainter tentacles give it a sense of looking out over a field of them, almost like seaweed rising up from the ocean bottom.
Tentacle Deeps 27, 5.25″x7″ watercolor on paper.
This isn’t quite small enough for a standard frame, and I haven’t yet matted it properly into a larger one for photography, but I suspect you’ve seen enough framed tentacles by now to know the drill. Instead, enjoy the spooky bottom-up detail shot.
Tentacle Deeps 27, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: orange, red, salt, sunset, tentacle deeps, tentacles, watercolor
Spiral Bookmark 1
Saturday, February 18th, 2012
Spiral Bookmark 1
by Amy Crook
And so we wave a cheerful goodbye to Bookmark Week with this last installment.
I was experimenting with these pigment-dense watercolor sticks I picked up, using the teal and orange pair to create a very bright contrast indeed. I wasn’t quite happy with it as is, though, so I added in the silver spirals on top with this awesome silver brush pen I got in Japantown, which gives a nice bit of shine to the piece.
Spiral Bookmark 1, 1.5″x7″ watercolor and brush pen on paper, nfs, sold.
Spiral Bookmark 1, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see the various textures from the drawn lines to the washes created by running a wet brush over the watercolor stick, to the shining silver paint floating atop it all. Below, the bookmark sits happily with a book, just waiting to fulfill its intended purpose.
Spiral Bookmark 1, with book, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: bookmark, brush pen, nfs, orange, silver, sold, teal, watercolor, watercolor stick
Tentacle Bookmark 1
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Tentacle Bookmark 1
by Amy Crook
I couldn’t neglect Tentacle Tuesday for Valentine’s Day, now could I? After all, it is a nice lovely red.
After I finished this one, I texted a photo to a friend who immediately replied, “Are you giving me the tentacle?”
I drew this in pen and ink on a thick, textured watercolor paper that’s a nice warm white base for the tentacle and its background.
Tentacle Bookmark 1, 1″x7.625″ pen and ink on paper, nfs (sold).
Tentacle Bookmark 1, with book, by Amy Crook
Above you can see this bookmark’s quite a bit longer than yesterday’s, but will still nestle nicely in a hardcover book. May I suggest a volume of Lovecraft?
Tentacle Bookmark, detail, by Amy Crook
The usual obligatory tentacle shot, which is tamer than it sounds. Don’t forget to visit all the bookmarks from this week.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: bookmark, nfs, orange, pen and ink, red, sold, tentacles
Dichrome
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Dichrome by Amy Crook
Despite the rather random way this image came about (and really, do my abstract pieces come about any other way?), I’m really in love with the stuttering flow of the paint and the subtle transition from warm orange to cool, soft blue. The salt pools came later, using a black ink that separates in water into brown and blue, which mixed beautifully with the pink Himalayan salt.
The swoop of paint reminds me of clouds at sunset, breaking up as they rise up into the sky, but then I’m not sure what the salt pools would become, though they were absolutely necessary for the visual balance of the piece.
Dichrome, 6″x6″ watercolor, ink and salt on paper, nfs (sold).
There’s a lot of variation in the salt pools this time around, and here you can really see the colors of them and how they echo the paint colors.
Dichrome, detail 1, by Amy Crook
And here’s another view of the same section that allows you to really appreciate the geometric crystals in the big pool, and the chunk of pink salt with its rough surfaces that’s nearby. I always find the close-up photos of the salt crystal formations fascinating.
Dichrome, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: blue, nfs, orange, salt, sold, watercolor
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Autumn Breeze
Monday, January 2nd, 2012
Autumn Breeze by Amy Crook
I wanted to revisit the autumnal color palette of Autumn Winds, so I created this piece with different materials. The paper is a thick, soft cream-coloured printing paper, and the little spirals use quinacridone burnt orange paint instead of the less lightfast pen ink, though the pigment doesn’t infuse as well into the salt. Instead of tea there’s all watercolor paints for the rest, breezy spirals gathered around each salt pool like strange seeds tossed on a light fall breeze.
Autumn Breeze, 8″x6″ watercolor and salt on Arches cover white paper.
Below you can see how the salt crystals spread a little into the textured paper without going too far outside their original pool. The actual color of the piece is somewhere in between the two images, more saturated than the scan but less so than the detail photo.
Autumn Breeze, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: brown, for sale, gold, orange, salt, watercolor
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