Posts Tagged ‘pen and ink’
Zombie Coloring
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
This is thus far the only piece of art I’ve actually finished for my Zombie Family Coloring Book project. Somehow, I just don’t have it in me to draw that many zombies in a row. Who knew?
Still, I’m very pleased with this girl, from her Watchmen t-shirt and bloody, matching socks to her very special crayon holder. Perhaps if I give myself a whole year, I’ll manage a book’s worth of zombies by next Mother’s/Father’s day. Heh.
Zombie Coloring, 7″x5″ pen and ink and Copic markers on paper, not for sale.
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring, copic marker, nfs, pen and ink, zombie
Snowflakes
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
After seeing the lovely crystal formations in Aglow, I decided to test out what I could get with blue ink and the same paper. The effect was extremely simple but quite lovely, so I decided to keep it as is rather than muddle it up with anything else.
Snowflakes, 5″x5″ pen and ink and salt on watercolor paper, $222, framed, with free shipping.
Here’s a shot of one of the snowflakes up close.

Snowflakes, detail, by Amy Crook
It’s enhanced well by a very simple black frame.
I’ve put a detailed set of shot of the progress behind the cut, so you can see how the snowflakes grew.
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: blue, for sale, pen and ink, salt
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Oil Slick
Monday, July 4th, 2011
I’m constantly frustrated by how hard these pieces are to photograph. The few people who have seen them in person agree with me that there’s really no way to capture the texture, the play of light and color, and the overall feel of the sparkling salt. In this case, the salt sucked up the paint and the dark green ink spirals to acquire a dark iridescence like an oil slick or a bird’s wing.
Oil Slick, 5.5″x4.25″ mixed media on embossed card, $199 with free shipping. I’m still on the lookout for frames for these pieces, but they could be mounted in a larger frame quite easily with a simple matte.
You can see below how the salt crystals formed with layers of color, making intriguing tiny patterns within the patterns.
And here’s a hint of the way the colors shift and change when you move the piece in the light:
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
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
Monsters of HP Lovecraft Print
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Monsters of HP Lovecraft Print by Amy Crook, $23.23
My 4-year-old printer finally bit the dust 2 weeks ago, and when the time came to replace it, I couldn’t resist the lure of a large-format printer. It prints my cards beautifully (and borderlessly), and now I can make something awesome and new – posters! Actually the color is richer and deeper than the old printer, so my cards look even better now, closer to the originals.
Okay, the best part is really that it just fits into the bookshelf where the old one lived, so I don’t have to try to rearrange everything. But the prints are pretty cool.
Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, and half a dozen others are printed in rich, cartoon colors along with their names and a short description of their place in the Lovecraft Mythos.
I’ve decided to run an open edition of 11″x17″ prints, on high-quality 28-lb bright white laser paper. I’ll be shipping them first class mail in good-quality cardboard poster tubes, so you should get yours in perfect condition and ready to hang. I’ll even sign it!
Monsters of HP Lovecraft Print, 11″x17″ print on paper, $23.23 with free shipping in the US. Available at my Etsy shop.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art
Tags: copic marker, cthulhu, etsy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, weeble
Harvest Moon 2
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Harvest Moon 2 by Amy Crook
Even as I’m really developing the salt work into a proper technique, I still learn something new with each piece. This painting began with a lot of painstaking drawing that became nearly obliterated by the process, and ended up with a deceptively simple image with a lot of texture and detail just waiting to be found by the careful viewer.
Harvest Moon 2, 7″x5″ salt, pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper.
The central shape actually started as a dense circle of pen-and-ink spirals, but you can only see a tiny shadow of the original ink if you look very closely.

Harvest Moon 2, detail 1, by Amy Crook
When I added the salt and water to it, the golden-orange ink turned into a vividly orange puddle, which then dried to the softer peach color you see in the final product.

Harvest Moon 2, in progress, by Amy Crook
There’s a dense layer of sparkling salt crystals overlaying the entire surface of the ‘moon,’ adding a physical texture on top of the visual texture.

Harvest Moon 2, detail 2, by Amy Crook
The salt layer, like the ink beneath it, formed unevenly based on where the paper warped and the water pooled. Here you can really see the line of dense crystals that runs vertically through the image.

Harvest Moon 2, detail 3, by Amy Crook
And here it is tucked into a frame, ready to find its new home.

Harvest Moon 2, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: harvest moon, moon, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
Mod Tree
Monday, June 27th, 2011
This piece was an experiment in making something less abstract out of the salt pools. I really like the way the arrangement of dots suggest a tree without ever actually forming the shape of leaves. The circles remind me of abstract Mod art from the ’60s, hence the name.
When I make these pieces, I can only line three or four up on the bookshelf at a time, and they have to dry anywhere from half a day to a full 24 hours. I can’t always take good progress photos if I start something at night, but when the sun’s shining in the window I do try to make sure I get some shots.
Mod Tree, 5″x7″ salt, pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, $222, framed, with free shipping.
In the first detail shot, the lighter colors got washed out a bit but you can see the biggest salt crystals rising up off the paper.
Here you can see how the minimalist tree trunk gently supports the sparkling arrangement of leaves above.
Here you can really see the salt inside each water droplet, before it dissolved. I love how the light just glows through the water at the start, an ephemeral moment of beauty in the process of making art.
The scanned version doesn’t have the same sparkle and dimension as the photos, but you can see the shape and color really clearly. It’ll ship in its frame so it stays nice and safe on its journey to your home.
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes
Tags: for sale, green, pen and ink, salt, tree, watercolor
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