Louise Brooks, Inspiration

Louise Brooks
"Black Comedy" by Amy Crehore Copyright 2005

Although most of my Little Pierrots were drawn without looking at any reference material at all, a couple of them were inspired by the poses of beautiful silent movie star, Louise Brooks.

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Fashion Poodles

Searching for Pre-war Hokum Music?

Here are a couple of links that are valuable resources for Hokum aficionados.

Blues Images and Document Records

If you want to find pre-war black blues, jazz, rags and jugband music, then Document Records can't be beat.

And, if you like the amazing graphics on the old race records ads, Blues Images publishes a calendar every single year featuring new images and a free CD of hokum music - all for a measly $19.95. The 2007 calendar is available now.

Monkeys!!

"The Banana Eater" painting was just featured on boingboing this week (as well as on webmetricsguru and on drawn and artNYC before that) and it actually was the very first painting in the "Monkey Love"series. It was painted over a year ago for "Blab! 17" .

There will be a book signing of "Blab!17"
at the Blab!Show this year, which is scheduled to open at CoproNason Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA on Sept 23, 2006 at 8:30-11PM.
Other artists in the show include:
Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Lou Brooks, Greg Clarke, Shag, Brian Cronin, Ryan Heshka, Fred Stonehouse, and more.

It was not the first time that I painted squirrel monkeys (or native girls, for that matter). "The Organ Grinder" painting which can be seen on my website in the painting section was the first time that I used the image of the squirrel monkey with a sailor hat. That was painted a few years ago. I just posted the "Banana Eater" really large on the homepage of my website. Looks pretty darn good there.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Shiori Matsumoto, Magical Painter

Painting Copyright 2006 Shiori Matsumoto

I have a pen pal in Japan named Shiori Matsumoto and she is one terrific painter. She's a surrealist, too, and we have a lot in common. Our subject matter, for instance: girls, cats, curtains, theater, mystery. Check out her website gallery:

Shiori Matsumoto

Little Pierrot Drawings

"Hula Hoop Blues" copyright 2005 Amy Crehore, pencil on paper

"Little Hokum Rag" was recently written up by Johnny on Drawn! (thanks, Johnny) which reminded me that I have been meaning to add some more drawings to my website for a long time now. So, I just went and uploaded 10 more Little Pierrot Series Drawings in the drawing section. Have a look! These are newer, more complex ones. I will add more in the weeks to come, including my Monkey Love Series drawings. And, yes, I used a coffee can lid to draw those circles!

The Art of Amy Crehore

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Art NYC, Fabulous New Blog!

There's a new blog called Art NYC which featured my "Creature" painting this month after seeing Mark Frauenfelder's recent boingboing post about it.
Later, B.L. Ochman gave both Art NYC and my painting a nice mention.
Marshall Sponder of ArtNYC has now written a great review of my "Banana Eater" painting in his July 15th, 2006 post.

I suppose he will have to continue to wonder about what the red pelican means in my painting (actually a scarlet ibis from South America) because I don't know myself! It's a design element - I needed it to balance my composition - but, it is also a potential "character" in the fantasy. I can tell him that my monkey is from South America and so is my girl and the tree has nuts, but they aren't coconuts, they are brazil nuts. The monkey is a squirrel monkey and the location is loosly based on Devil's Island, off of French Guiana.
Check out ART NYC

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