Posts Tagged ‘pastel’
Unreal Angel
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
Unreal Angel by Amy Crook
I’ve had this painting for a while now, but I was never quite happy with certain details in it, so today when I was painting I pulled it out and mixed up a soft, warm gold and brought the too-subtle wings into fuller being. They’re still translucent and only half-realized at best, but much easier to see.
Unreal Angel, 12″x16″ pastel and oil paint on canvas board.
I also added a sort of secret detail; I got out my duochrome aquamarine and gave him a gently-blended halo that you can only see from some angles — in photos, it only showed up with the flash on.
Categories: Floating Gallery
Tags: angel, canvas board, for sale, oil painting, pastel
Sunset
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
Sunset by Amy Crook
Over a decade of doing the Starcycles Calendar off and on, I’ve gotten to create a variety of gorgeous art. In 2003, we tried out a wall calendar format, and I created this simple drawing using pastels on rich midnight blue paper. The drawing is very loose and I’ve always liked the way everything in the sky is reflected in the vast ocean below.
Sunset, 22.5″x19″ pastel on colored pastel paper
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, pastel, starcycles
Am I Blue?
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Am I Blue?, 5″x5″ pastel on bristol board
This is another piece done using S as a reference, I think off one of the photos I took of him. I swear I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to draw people from below without it becoming all about their nostrils, heh. This was also a practice in not-quite-monochrome, using only various shades of blue, from blue-violet hair to blue-green lips to soft powder blue skin. The darkest shadows are the only true black.
This piece is done with soft chalk pastels on a thick bristol board, and really ought to be framed. I’m sure I’ll get to it one of these days!
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: for sale, pastel, s
Sad Simon
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Sad Simon by Amy Crook
I’ve had a few different models over the years, and this was one of the first. I spent several afternoons just taking photos of him, a lot of them in b&w, and used one of them as a reference on this piece. Though my talent was never really in photography, I still have some of those photographs, and his face or figure shows up from time to time in pieces I’m working on.
I remember sitting crosslegged with this page tacked to the wall in front of me, the photo to one side, and only two colors of pastel to use, the very pale blue and dark blue with a tinge of green, to provide shadow and light on the middle blue ground. I used to work like that for hours, and at the end when I finished the piece, there was a fine layer of chalk dust on the carpet right below — oops!
I have given this piece several titles over the years, and this is the one that it seems to come back to. The wistful, pensive expression on Simon’s face matches well with the blue chalks, and doesn’t seem to need extra words to convey its essential meaning.
This piece is fully framed, and ready to hang.
Sad Simon, 19″x25″, pastel on colored paper in metal frame.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces
Tags: blue, for sale, pastel, portrait
