Posts Tagged ‘salt’
Five 1
Monday, October 10th, 2011
Five 1 by Amy Crook
This is my first foray into Artist Trading Cards (or Artist Card Edition Originals, as they’re called if you sell them), though I’ve had a pack of assorted blanks for a while now. I wasn’t sure if any of them would hold up to my method of growing salt crystals, but I decided to do a set of 5 with 5 ink spirals each (whether or not the salt pools formed), and call it, brilliantly, Five.
Have I mentioned I hate coming up with titles?
Five 1, 2.5″x3.5″ mixed media on paper, nfs (but available for trading!).
This one formed a very interesting salt crystal on one of the pools that looked almost melted, curvy and organic in a way most of them really never are.
Five 1, detail, by Amy Crook
If you’re an artist who makes ATCs of your own, and are coveting this one, let me know!
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: aceo, atc, five series, pen and ink, salt
Midnight Rain
Friday, October 7th, 2011
Midnight Rain by Amy Crook
This is a cool echo of the fiery copper from yesterday’s art. Although this is the same paint I used in Jellyfish Bloom, the bright aqua pigment sinks into the black paper, leaving a watery echo of peacock-iridescent shimmer floating on top.
The salt this time picked up some of the green from the pen I used, but it’s quite pale inside the opaque matrix of the crystals. They’re darker where the paint coats them, but everything about this piece came out subtle and ghostly. Appropriate for Halloween, I think.
Midnight Rain, 5″x5″ mixed media on paper.
Midnight Rain, detail, by Amy Crook
When the sunlight hits this one, the iridescent paint goes purple on the paper in lovely contrast to the rich teal you see where it coats the salt crystals. From another angle, it looks more blue, as you can see below in the framed photo.
Midnight Rain, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: black, for sale, iridescent, pen and ink, salt, teal, watercolor
Copper Midnight
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
Copper Midnight by Amy Crook, $323
This is the first of a pair of pieces I made together using Arches Cover Black paper. I love that this velvety black paper is fade-proof, because it’s not dyed but instead turns black from a chemical reaction set off in the paper. It’s art with science! Not my science, but still.
I made salt circles with my trusty orange pen, which barely picked up at all into the opaque white crystals this time. Then I used metallic copper watercolor for the ripples around each little pool, and copper gel pen for the signature, making an eerie monochrome piece very appropriate for the Halloween season.
Copper Midnight, 5″x5″ mixed media on paper, $323, framed, with free shipping.
Below you can see how the iridescent paint catches the light and glows with shimmery copper.
Copper Midnight, detail 1, by Amy Crook
Here you can see just one salt pool, with the copper coating the salt on one side and making it look like it’s almost made of some strange metallic crystal instead of mundane salt. I’ve always liked how each little ring of salt is its own tiny henge of sorts, big crystals rising up around the scattered few in the center.
Copper Midnight, detail 2, by Amy Crook
When the sunlight isn’t hitting them, the places where the paint was thinnest almost sink completely back into the black paper like ghosts, though it seems to float above the paper where it’s thickest. You can see it in its frame, below, with my iPhone for scale.
Copper Midnight, framed, by Amy Crook, $323
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: black, copper, for sale, iridescent, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
A Murder of Crows
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
A Murder of Crows by Amy Crook
This piece uses several different techniques together but really just one pen, although I did go back in and add just a hint of color to the shadowy, sunlit crows in their flight. I’m very pleased with the overall effect, which makes me think of a cover or title page to some mystery novel or horror story. There’s even 13 crows in my murder to make it extra spooky.
A Murder of Crows, 6″x6″ pen & ink and salt on watercolor paper.
I like the way the salt is nearly invisible until the sunlight hits it, adding sparkle and color to an otherwise monochrome image.
A Murder of Crows, detail 1, by Amy Crook
The curving edges on each bird were partially created by the puddles of inky salt water, an imprecise process at best, which helps to give them a sense of being backed and blurred by strong sunlight.
A Murder of Crows, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: brush and ink, calligraphy, crow, for sale, murder of crows, pen and ink, salt
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White Hot
Monday, September 26th, 2011
White Hot by Amy Crook
It’s hard to capture the way this piece fairly glows with colour. There’s just two pigments, a pink and a rich orangey-gold that fades to the cream color of the paper in the center. I added seven salt circles, double-drawing the spirals in an orange-red and the apricot gold, so the centers of the salt circles reflect the pink from the corners, and the outer circles of salt crystals reflect the orange from the center.
White Hot, 5″x5″ salt, pen & ink, and watercolor on paper.
White Hot, detail 1, by Amy Crook
The salt crystals add a three-dimensional texture to the image, like planets being drawn into an inverse black hole.
White Hot, detail 2, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, orange, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
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Tentacle Deeps 15
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 15 by Amy Crook
Days of work went into today’s piece, but I think they’re my favorite tentacles yet. I used the same technique of softening pen-and-ink with water as in Tentacle Deeps 14, but then I went through and grew salt crystals along the body of each tentacle. The cross-hatching used three different pens to create the sense of light and depth, and my friend Eric L suggested that it looks like the tentacles are starting to dissolve where the light is hitting them.
Tentacle Deeps 15, 5″x7″ mixed media on paper.
Here you can see a closer view of the texture and the way I created the effect of light fading to darkness.
Tentacle Deeps 15, detail 1, by Amy Crook
I love how this shows off the variation in the tentacle colors, and the way the salt crystals sparkle even with the dark ink suffusing them.
Tentacle Deeps 15, detail 2, by Amy Crook
I finally had the brilliant idea of putting something in the framed shots so you’d get a sense of scale, so enjoy this shot of the tentacles in their frame, hanging out with my iPhone.
Tentacle Deeps 15, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: brush and ink, crosshatching, for sale, orange, pen and ink, red, salt, tentacle deeps
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Violet Midnight 2
Monday, September 19th, 2011
Violet Midnight 2 by Amy Crook
I’ve been thinking about making prints lately, and that’s led me to think about the way that the salt paintings are really unprintable — while a print of a normal piece is maybe half as cool as the real piece, but printing the salt pieces loses 90% of their awesomeness. So, with that in mind, I mixed up a slightly different mix of the violet-black from Violet Midnight and made a piece that only used the salt for visual texture rather than physical structure. There’s no shiny paint, no sparkly salt, just simple ink and watercolor.
I actually started it the same way I do any salt piece, with spirals in ink on paper, but this time I went straight to painting the background (which has little salt-made stars, done the traditional way by scattering salt onto the damp paint), then used plain water to pick up the ink and create halos of golden orange around the sun and larger stars.
Violet Midnight 2, 7″x5″ watercolor, pen and ink on paper.
Here’s how it looks in a frame, with my iPhone for scale:
Violet Midnight 2, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, moon, orange, pen and ink, salt, spirals, violet, watercolor
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