hp lovecraft | SteamPunk Art, Fantasy Paintings and Pop Surrealism Illustration by Myke Amend

Posted on May 17, 2011March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend

For Lovers of Rare Books

I made this book a while back, out of hardwood, and spent a lot of time sanding, carving, and polishing it. I also put a lot of love into making the securing system – two fat-ended brass pins to give me lots of room to fill it.

If someone grabs it, through our Kickstarter:

– I will fill it with every print from the Airships and Tentacles series
– each printed on a fine rough-edged rag paper
– each page annotated as the coffee table book would be, but in my own handwriting
– each page signed discreetly and numbered “1 of 1”
– each of these prints will be an entirely unique size from any editions made
– The front page will have “to [Your Name]” and my signature.
– To make it even more rare, I will make one unique work or original art to complete the piece. Yes, one page will be an original work of art to complete the series.

The Book size is roughly 13 inches by 15 inches, and will be a hefty and beautiful tome for your tabletop or shelf. You can also remove each print if you wish, to hang them, and secure the book cover away someplace safe.

It isn’t cheap… It’ll cost me about 20 bucks to print each imaged page – which means you’re getting this at no actual profit…maybe even a loss – but I am hoping that this sale would push us over that tipping edge of 50% funding. And I’ll do anything to ensure the success of our project… including this.

Yes, it will be well worth it if it sells – so don’t feel bad about grabbing this great offer and helping us to make something even bigger.

So, if you would like to have this book, it is available for a donation of $1350, as are many other great things, at our Kickstarter: HERE

ALSO:

$20 through our kickstarter gets you a signed and personalized print of any of the below (you’ll need to go to my gallery page to get full views… it was hell just putting this compilation of thumbnails together):

Posted on March 16, 2011March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend — 2 Comments

Reign in Purple

Painted on birch panel in acrylic paints. Even the images below can’t possibly give you a good look at all the detail in this piece… but that is the story with most of my works.

This piece took me 2 + 2 days of no sleep, painting from waking till crashing.

“Break time” for me is a matter of choosing 2 or 3 days in which to do art other than the art I *should* be doing, and I tend to cram as much art into that time frame as I possibly can. This time around, I decided rather than several engravings or several small paintings, that I would do one painting, break far away from my typical American Art Movement or Luminist style, and delve into something more Art Nouveau or cartoony (I chose somewhere between ‘both’).

If you’d like to see the fine details (minuscule scales, blood vessels in the eyes, variegated petals, and all the fine lines which hold them in), you’ll probably need to buy the original (here), or buy one of the 20 available full sized giclees (here), *or* buy one of the 10 by 20 inch metallics (here)

Reign in Purple: 12 inches by 12 inches in acrylic on wood panel.

Detail 1 (click to view)

Detail 2 (click to view)

Posted on December 23, 2009March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend

Desert Shadows – Now Available (in my store)

I reached the point where I *wanted* to add “just a little bit more”, but typically, as one learns over thousands of years of banishment to Earth, this is the point where one more brush stroke equals “overworked”. I waited about fifteen minutes just staring at the thing, and was happy with my decision.

Taking photos of paintings in artificial light don’t tend to yield the most spectacular results – there is a slight color shift seen from one edge to another (especially visible on the full shot). I’ll be getting it professionally scanned while I am away, proofing it when I return on the 29th, and since my printers are local – I’ll be able to start shipping these around January 11th.

They are however available now, in large limied edition metallics, limited edition giclees on canvas, and medium-sized open edition metallics (18×12 inches).

A bit about the painting:

I wanted the sphynx to be foreboding forgotten monolith, but I also wanted it to look “alive”, so I decided to put the tentacles emanating from the portal in the sphynx, putting the one winding around the back in the position a cat’s tail would be in were it thinkiing about ‘pouncing’.

In the shadows of this painting, are a night sky – something to dress up the dark spots, and to fulfill the need I had to make a starry sky out of my cloudy lightning-filled sky.

These weird shell things- I wanted rocks, but did not want them to be boring old rocks, I also wanted the desert to look almost as if it were a dried out ocean… so these fossil-like shell-like patterns in the stone served to fill these needs.

The lightning field – The way I wanted everything to be lit, required that lighting was coming in varying levels from many angles. I also love lightning. The floaty cages are a throwback to back when I did purely surreal artwork… and I thought they would add a nice ‘living’ touch to the landscape without ruining my desolate scene with actual plants.

Lanterns everywhere – this one in the netting and reflecting off the portal window. A view of the coal bin, lightning field, floating cages, and propellers as well.

Oh… the nautilus. The nautilus-like submarine from “the Rescue”, now beached in the middle of the desert. Why??? … umm… Don’t tell me how to run my painting! It was a whim!

Gondola – and lots of netting. More fishnet than a goth club on a Summer night. It serves well as extra cargo space. Ladders and doors for a sense of scale.

The whole painting. Please forgive the obvious color shift from right to left, it is the result of uneven lighting on the painting when I took the shot.

Posted on August 20, 2009March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend

Happy Accident – new print available

I love the printer I work with. They are not only fantastic at what they do, but wonderful to deal with

When I mess up the lines of communication, sometimes some really nice things can happen, such as this new 24×12 inch giclee of “the Machine”

camera phone pic of the thing stretched and mounted

I switched this order over to them because the last printer took forever (months) getting the artist’s prints from this batch to me.

I could not make up my mind if I wanted a new proof or not, first I did want one at half size, then I didn’t.

The reason being was that I already had their color profiles, and they matched up perfectly with those of the printer I had used to make the artist’s prints for this series.

Even though I did not need one, my first impression was to get a proof anyway, just to be thorough – but I decided instead to go ahead and print full-size, just in case it came out right. Choosing a different printer to run the series meant another artist print was called for – and this would be one of them.

Well, in my back and forth, I ended up with a 24 x 12 inch print instead of the 48 x 12. I thought I would sell this smaller artists print as just that… but when I stretched and mounted it, I realized it was the perfect size:

At 24 inches wide, it fills a decent amount of wall space. It looks great at this size, and is probably the smallest this wide-format image could be printed and still show all the detail and give the same feel. Most importantly – it offers a cheaper alternative to the huge 48 x 24 prints, which are a bear to stretch, mount, and ship (finding 48″ stretcher bars is tough, finding a 52x28x3 inch box is tough, shipping it out is very expensive).

On the 48×24 inch machine print in particular – I have had a lot of people tell me they really want one, but, as no surprise, things are too tight at the moment for large purchases. It does sadden me a bit that I cannot go any lower on the big ones, but I can offer alternate sizes.

Stretched and mounted, these are $165, but are reduced through this week to $125 (my typical introductory price thing). I do this because I know that seeing my art on the walls of people’s homes, makes people want one for themselves.

Posted on June 23, 2009March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend

Behold!

Just a few projects I am picking away at. If you want some step by step images on these, you can go to my flickr account (flickr.com/mykeamend)

1) Book with embedded faux bone seal/cameo. Materials: Brass, wood, polymer clay. I want to fill this with writings and drawings on skin, to give it a really eerie, creepy, “kids would be up all night for weeks if they ever entered the room they weren’t supposed to” feel. Human skin is out of the question, legalities and all – vellum will have to do, but such is out of my price range for the moment. I guess this will have to wait to be filled up.

2) Box with embedded faux bone seal/cameo. Materials: Brass, wood, polymer clay. To be filled with pulp metaphysical accouterments. This will hopefully be a very high end cabinet of curiousities piece or set of movie props when done.

3) Spring-shocked Goggles. Materials: Brass. Leather padding and straps to be added. Lenses to be added if/when I ever get myself to the optometrist.

Posted on June 13, 2009March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend

Steampunk Crucifix and Lovecraftian Tie Tack

It is a little known fact that a line of Popes dating back to the Middle Ages have secretly indulged in Steampunk. The Vatican’s favourite pets are mad scientists, kept inventing in a basement. This hush-hush hobby of the Popes of times past and present has led to an astonishing Steampunk museum in the darkest corners of the Vatican. The Pope wears the only key for the museum under his robes, to be passed on to the next hat in line. This large crucifix from the museum has been attributed to the Knights Templar.

Steampunk Crucifix by Insectus (blog link), who, like Catherinette Rings, makes some pretty awesome jewelry. Dr. Insectus’ Etsy store can be found here: insectus.etsy.com

See also (below): Amazingly creepy and rustic looking “Beholder” (AD&D) tie-tack by Catherinette Rings (Etsy Link):

(I can’t wear jewelry. My blood is pure acid. But the things these two sellers create, make me really wish things were otherwise)

Posted on June 12, 2009March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend — 2 Comments

Free WallPaper: Thanks for the Ether (Antarctic Experiment in sepia)

New Steampunk Wallpaper: “The Antarctic Experiment” (Sepia antiqued variant of the original image), 1280 x 1024, from the series “Airships and Tentacles” – a Jules Verne and Hp Lovecraft Inspired series of explorers in dirigibles in precarious situations.

Click image below to download or view:

A color version of this, in 1280×1024 and in 1600×1200 is available at Ettadiem.com

Antarctic Experiment in Sepia (Thanks for the Ether)

Posted on June 11, 2009March 12, 2018 by Myke Amend

New Limited Edition Giclees

New for summer is an extensive collection of engravings as limited edition giclees on Hahnemuhle fine-art rag paper format.

Each giclee has rough straight-torn edges and a border of 2.5 to 3 inches of this beautiful rag paper, making for an additional 5 to 6 inches in each direction – meaning more wall coverage.

Each these bold limited edition giclees are enlargements of the original highly detailed engravings, showcasing the fine linework and detail within each piece, and making for a wonderful block-print appearance.

To go straight to the prints from engravings, simply choose prints(engravings) in the catalogue listing (right), or click here.

*Also: for those who like to collect mini prints and small prints for scrapbooking purposes, those are next to come… an entire line of every artwork from this site (and some not yet here) will all be available in sizes of 5×7 or smaller.

There are many items now added to the now-better-organized store, and many more items to follow. Please continue to check in this next 7 days.