AMY BROWN BIO
Topic: AMY BROWN BIO
Amy Brown Bio
Updated July 2005

I receive email and snail mail every week asking me many questions about my profession, inspirations, art tips, and how I got started. Because my schedule is so packed with trying to run a business, negotiate licensing contracts, painting new images, attempting (and failing) to keep my home clean, and raising a child, I unfortunately don't have the luxury of answering everyone personally. In the next several paragraphs, I hope to answer most of the questions that are asked of me.


When I decided I was going to be an artist, I really didn't know what I was in for. Few probably do. It's wonderful to be able to support yourself by doing something you love. However, its still work. It has its unpleasant aspects. Retailing, wholesaling and licensing your art takes a tremendous amount of time. The days when you could sit and paint for 5 or 6 hours rapidly vanish. Even though I have an assistant now who helps out with a lot of the work around here, I rarely have more than a few hours a week to paint these days.

People ask me, "How did you get where you are today?", as if I might know some magnificent secret. I think some people might believe that everything I have accomplished happened overnight. The boring truth of it is…there are no secrets. It took me a good nine to ten years to become truly successful in this field. There is no fast or easy way. I spent years devoting every spare minute to painting. I sacrificed any social life I might have and took no vacations and few days off. I still don't get vacations.
Amy Caught Drawing


I guess if I had a secret it would be hard work, devotion, and unwavering focus. I constantly set goals for myself and as soon as I accomplish them, I set new ones.

"How did you get your work noticed?" is another question I come across frequently. Part of the answer is luck. Shortly after the debut of my first website, a fairy themed website emailed me and asked if they could link to my site. That brought me more traffic and more links, and those links brought more links, and more links….you get the picture. So, in answer to the question of getting your work seen, my first answer is to get a website! Right now! I would also suggest doing street fairs, conventions, etc. Submit samples to local shops that might be interested in carrying work by local artists. Join community art websites like Epilogue or Deviant Art.

INSPIRATION and BEATING ARTIST'S BLOCK

The number ONE most asked question…*drum roll*…"Where do you get your ideas?". To this, my answer is EVERYTHING. I have several art books and movies which give me a lot of inspiration. Music, novels, sometimes even commercials can be inspiring. A short phrase uttered by someone standing behind you in the grocery store could be the seed of a wonderful painting. You just never know when inspiration will strike, so you must always be vigilant.

I get so many ideas; I couldn't possibly paint all of them. I like to keep an idea journal, so when I am searching for the next painting I can flip through it for inspiration. With pages and pages of ideas at my fingertips, it's hard to get artists block. I also like to keep stacks of half finished paintings and drawings lying around my studio so I always have SOMETHING to work on.

MATERIALS

A key component in creating a good painting is the materials you use. Cheap paints, brushes and paper can have a negative effect on your work, as they generally do not perform like high quality materials and often tend to deteriorate over time. Start your career by using good materials. Every artist has their own brand of paper, paint and brushes that they feel most comfortable with. It may take years of experimenting with various materials before you find the best for you. I prefer to use Daniel Smith Watercolors, Arches paper and Windsor & Newton brushes.

CREATING PAINTINGS

Trying to explain how I create a painting is very difficult, partly because I am not a teacher and partly because I really don't know what I'm doing. Having no training in watercolor painting or any other form of painting, I have had to make things up as I go along. I started simply with ink and watercolor pencils and gradually worked my way into actual watercolors and more detailed works. I read a couple of books on watercolor, but I didn't find them helpful, as they taught techniques suited for traditional watercolors. The images were too loose and blurred for the type of art I wanted to do. So, I began to study other artists' works, regardless of the medium they worked in, and tried to apply their techniques to my own work. This had varying degrees of success. I find I learn better when I give myself a task that I don't know how to accomplish and then make myself accomplish it. (i.e. if I had never painted a rock before, I would include some in a painting and then pray that I could figure out a way to paint them.) Some of my best painting "tricks" have been learned this way.

My best piece of advice regarding technique is to practice as much as possible. People ask me "how do you do hands, or faces?" and the only answer is to practice doing them over and over and over until you get it right. There are no shortcuts. I am asked often how I do the "salt trick", and though I have explained it a few times in other articles, many people have said they haven't been able to do it. How do I do it? I just do. I've practiced it so many times; I can do it in my sleep. The easiest technique you can do still takes practice.

Every artist has their own way of going about creating a painting. We all have to figure out what suits us. Some ink a piece before they paint it, while some ink after the paint. Some paint the focus image first and the background later, while some do the reverse. Do what works best for you.

Here's a brief description of how I create a painting:

I draw up some VERY rough figure sketches to get ideas for poses. I then flesh them out a bit and make several photo copies in different sizes. Then I choose the size I like best for the piece and transfer it lightly in pencil via light table to a piece of watercolor paper.

I work on the drawing until I am happy with it. This may take fifteen minutes or it may take hours or even days. Most people would complete the sketch on a separate paper and then transfer it to the watercolor paper, but I get bored quickly, so drawing the same image twice is out of the question. Preliminary drawings often have more spark than the finished piece. I believe the "rawness" of the drawing gives it "life". If an image is drawn too many times, it loses its "life". The lines are no longer spontaneous and powerful. When I am happy with the pencil drawing, I ink in the areas that I feel need to be inked.

I tend to work on several images at once, usually five or more. I do all the background washes first. Then I work on the backgrounds. I prefer to paint characters, so painting backgrounds is very dull for me. I do it first to get it out of the way, but also because I find it easier to paint the figure over the background.

When the backgrounds are all finished, I paint the skin tones on each painting. From there, I work on the faces, then clothing. Hair and wings usually come last.
Each aspect of a painting involves a gradual build up of colors. Background washes can have as many as five or six layers of paint, but often two or three are sufficient. Clothing usually has at least 2 layers, while four or five layers are needed for hair. I use white gouache or colored pencil for accents and highlights.

I like to work small. Most of my paintings are smaller than 11x17 inches. I find that I can easily get bored with an image, so I try not to spend more than 3 days on any piece, whether it's 8x10 inches or the rare 22x30 inches. Normally, I will spend roughly six to ten hours on a small painting. That does not include the drawing time, as some drawings can take days, months, or even years before I am happy enough with them to start adding color. I prefer to paint simple pieces, with a strong, single character. I feel a simple image has more emotion. The viewer can look at the painting and get an instant, raw emotional reaction. While I enjoy looking at very detailed pieces, I find I do not have the patience to create them myself.

MAKING PRINTS

It used to be, if an artist wanted to make prints of their work they had to have 1,000 or more of a single image printed at one time by a professional printer. The artist was left with a large expense and a whole lot of prints to try to sell. Luckily, through the miracles of technology, that is no longer necessary. I started making my prints by going to the local Kinko's and having laser prints made. I was able to print a few prints at a time of multiple images, thus expanding my print line quickly at minimal cost. Later, I switched to having my prints done at the local Mail Boxes Etc, which had a better laser copier and since I would come in every Sunday to get hundreds of prints made, they taught me how to run the machine myself and left me to it. As my volume of prints continued to rise, I soon felt it necessary to look into leasing a copier. Initially I leased a Xerox Majestic with a friend of mine. We split lease costs and paid for our own copies. Later, I upgraded to a Xerox Doc 12, which I love. This is probably not the best route for most starting artists, because leasing a copier is expensive and you have to have space for the machine. Unless you sell hundreds of prints every month, a personal ink jet printer is a better choice. They are cheaper, take up less space, and make a far superior print. The cost per print is higher than that of a laser print, but you get a beautiful print.

GENERAL INFO
(or various questions that people ask...)

My Favorites:
(I reserve the right to change my mind about any of these at any given time)

Color: RED
Food: Halibut Oscar
Dessert: White chocolate strawberry pie
Drink: Margarita on the rocks, no salt
Music: Loreena McKennitt, The Smiths, Coldplay, Natalie Merchant
Movies: Heavy Metal, Labyrinth, LOTR, Nightmare Before Christmas
TV Shows (which have all been canceled, I am so depressed): Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, X Files, Farscape.
Books: The Imajica, Someplace to Be Flying
Pets: A rather large, lazy, arthritic cat and several goldfish
Hobbies: Gardening
Formal Art Training: None
Mad Passionate Crush: Orlando Bloom (someone lock that man up before I hunt him down. Wait a minute, is my husband going to read this?)

Misc Facts:
As of 2005, I have been painting roughly 12 years, am older than I look, married with one child (so far), hate to cook, like to stay at home, do not like attention, can't stop buying clothing, and enjoy reading before bed.


A FEW INTERVIEWS...
Amy Brown, Fantasy Artist and Inspired Tattoos
A Recent Interview
Chatting with the Masters: The Amy Brown Interview
Amy Brown; Enchanted Interview