Monday, September 24, 2007

Rice Plate

"The Nibbler" copyright Amy Crehore 2006

"The Charmer, The Tickler, The Flower Muncher, The Nibbler, The Two-Timer, and The Examiner. Each are available (as limited edition signed giclee prints) for $200 directly from Amy Crehore."
Thanks, RICE PLATE , for blogging my Monkey Love prints (and my Little Pierrot prints).
Rice Plate is a cool blog with lots of great links and crazy features.

My Cat is Human

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Isn't this a great photo of my precious cat?

Worth 1000 eye teasers

From the Monster contest
From the Them There Eyes contest
From the Celebrity Puppet contest
I'm sure most of you know about Worth 1000, but I did not. That is, until someone showed me an assortment of vegetables miraculously turned into beautiful animals. Above are just some of the surrealistic creations from that wacky site's photoshop contests. Crazy man. And creative, too.
WORTH 1000

The Art of Amy Crehore

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Early Little Pierrots

Painting #3 by Amy Crehore
Painting #5 by Amy Crehore
Painting #6 by Amy Crehore
Painting #7 by Amy Crehore
Painting#8 by Amy Crehore
I don't even have some of my earliest "Little Pierrots" on my website. Here are a few from March 2004 and they only have numbers as titles. They are more sketchy than my later ones. Some I can't even show you (there are some that take place in a forest). I painted one per day (fast for me) and I sent them to an illustrator friend. It was an experiment and an exercise. They were drawn from my head using no references. It began with a painting of a cat sitting on a guitar boat in the ocean looking through binoculars at a naked girl on the beach. That is how I came up with the circular format... this was supposed to be what the cat saw. He saw a girl and a pierrot. Somehow they all ended up performing on stage. Later on, I spent up to a week on each one and they got more complicated and refined:

Friday, September 21, 2007

Mother Lode of Victorian Trade Card Art






I just came across an incredible resource for artists or anyone who loves Victorian illustration, humorous advertising and the color lithography of the late 1800's. I have shown only a few examples of Victorian Trade Cards here. Follow this link to an online reference library of an amazing amount of unique and exciting images:
Click on all of the links, you can't go wrong! A feast for your eyes.
Here's a brief intro to Victorian Trade Cards: "Over a century ago, during the Victorian era, one of the favorite pastimes was collecting small, illustrated advertising cards that we now call trade cards...Some of the products most heavily advertised by trade cards were in the categories of: medicine, food, tobacco, clothing, household, sewing, stoves, and farm. The popularity of trade cards peaked around 1890, and then almost completely faded by the early 1900s when other forms of advertising in color, such as magazines, became more cost effective." from article by Ben Crane

The Art of Amy Crehore

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Look and Learn!




Click on images to enlarge
It is stamped "Property of Blackwell Jr. High", but it looks like a textbook for a 2nd grader. It's my "Look and Learn" book by Scott, Foresman and Company from 1949 that I picked up at a flea market so long ago that I can't remember where or when. It's my single most used reference book next to my Golden Nature Guides. And it's surreal. No real words, just some very strange and exciting pictures. I love the style of it, yet it was painted by nine different people. It's torn and beat up and dirty. I wouldn't have it any other way and I can't do without it sometimes.
The Art of Amy Crehore

myspace: been there, done that

I'm cancelling my myspace account. Anyone who was my friend at myspace who would like to be on my emailing list please contact me here: amy@amycrehore.com
Or anyone else, for that matter, who would like to get my news updates via email.
I gave myspace a good ol' try since last February, but I am much happier spending my time writing this blog.
The Art of Amy Crehore