Posts Tagged ‘yellow’
Lemon Heart
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
Lemon Heart by Amy Crook
This piece went through several incarnations before I got it to something I was happy with. The final product has a cheerfulness to it that goes well with the lemony yellow, enhanced by multiple layers of salt, watercolor, and pen and ink in two shades of green. The salt pool at the upper left formed a heart all by itself, so I couldn’t resist giving it an outline in the same grass-green ink as the spirals below, which tended to run and pool wherever there was enough salt left on the paper.
The bright new-leaf green of the spiral-textured section is done with a Pilot fountain pen from Japan, and the ink surprised me by being nearly obliterated when I dropped water onto it, unlike the black pen from that same line, which tended to blur but stay strong in Salt Cell 2.
Lemon Heart, 6″x4″ watercolor, salt and pen and ink on handmade watercolor postcard, $99 with free shipping.
You can see below how the salt made sparkly craters in some places on the surface of the piece, though this photo was taken before I was completely finished, and some of the texture has since been obliterated or changed.
Lemon Heart, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art
Tags: for sale, green, salt, watercolor, yellow
Tentacle Deeps 9
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Tentacle Deeps 9 by Amy Crook
Once again, I bring you tentacles for Tuesday!
This watercolor piece uses double the salt for its effects. First I added rich texture and some orangey-gold color to the background with the large, coarse salt crystals. Later I used smaller Kosher salt on the tentacles themselves, putting the salt on after painting each one to get the maximum effect.
Something about this background made me want paler tentacles, so there’s less layers as a result. The salt texture is more dramatically visible, making the tentacles look as though they’ve got barnacles attached from years under the deep oceans.
Tentacle Deeps 9, 4″x6″ watercolor and salt.
I’ve also made an iPhone wallpaper and computer wallpaper out of this one, as well, enjoy!
Tentacle Deeps 9, framed, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Free Wallpapers, Series and Books, Tentacles
Tags: for sale, salt, tentacle deeps, watercolor, yellow
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Burning Planet
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Burning Planet by Amy Crook, $169
A circle is such a simple form, and yet I feel like I could find an infinite variation in them. This one, too, looks the surface of a planet to me, or maybe some alien sun, the swirls of almost neon yellow marked by orange and red patterns.
This time I used my Windsor & Newton watercolors rather than the Japanese pigment inks, and it’s really interesting how the different media react differently to the addition of the salt. Rather than drying to a fine powder, each little spot of orange-red on the yellow paint is actually a salt crystal formed with the pigment-rich water as the salt on top dissolved, and then dried. If you look closely you can see the flat, squarish shapes of the salt crystals (click the image to enlarge). It even sparkles in the sunlight.
Burning Planet, 5″x5″ salt and watercolor on watercolor paper.
Here’s a terrible iPhone photo of the painting at an angle, so you can see the sun sparkling off the crystals:
Burning Planet, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Daily Art, Series and Books
Tags: for sale, orange, planet, salt, sun, watercolor, yellow
Weeble Wednesday: King in Yellow
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Weeble King in Yellow by Amy Crook
The King in Yellow is the fourth weeble in my series of depictions of the mythos of HP Lovecraft. He’s often associated with Hastur, and originally appears in the short story “The Repairer of Repuations.” He is the titular character in a play said to reveal such irresistible truth as to drive any reader or viewer mad.
In keeping with the Neil Gaiman theme of the week, the play is a central part of a pastiche of Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes that he wrote, entitled “A Study in Emerald.”
King in Yellow, 5″x7″ pen, ink and Copic marker on watercolor paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring book, copic marker, for sale, lovecraft, monster, pen and ink, tentacles, weeble, yellow
Icon
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Icon, 1″x1″ etching on a 10″x4″ piece of watercolor paper
This is another tiny etching plate, which I inked using a method where the figure, who was etched deep enough to leave an impression in the paper, was inked in yellow, then the plate was wiped mostly clean and the rest of the surface was re-inked in red.
In classical art, yellow is the color of suffering, and of course in modern times we’re all about red for pain and blood. The diluted ink actually bled down the paper a little when it was run through the press, adding to the symbolism.
I actually did a whole series of crucifixion pieces during that time period, though this is definitely the smallest of the lot — the plate itself is only one inch square.
Icon, detail, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books
Tags: crucifix, etching, for sale, intaglio, red, small plates, yellow
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