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 Amy Brown resides
in the Pacific Northwest with her family. As a child, her interest
in Faeries sprouted when she was introduced to the works of Arthur
Rackham, Brian Froud and Alan Lee. Movies like The Dark Crystal,
Labyrinth, and Legend played large parts in developing Amy’s love of
fantastical tales and mystical creatures. Over the years, various
artists, books and films from the past and present added inspiration
to her growing imagination and continue to do so.
Amy began her Faery
art career in 1992 when she started work at a gallery called
Festival of Art. There she learned about color, design, framing
techniques, layout and various art techniques. She was surrounded by
various types of art on a daily basis and read every art, printing,
framing and business article available in the monthly magazines that
came to the gallery. Festival of Art is where Amy displayed and sold
her first Faery painting after her boss, Shawn, asked her to paint a
picture for an empty frame she had lying around the gallery. As
months progressed, Amy devoted more time to Faery paintings and
began selling in the gallery, local shops, and street fairs.
For several years, Amy sold through various stores and venues. Then
in 1997 her first website debuted. It was only for viewing her work,
sort of an experiment at the time to see what would happen. Almost
immediately, she began to get email requesting to purchase her work.
The site was re-designed and began selling Amy’s work world wide
soon thereafter. Word spread rapidly about the new site. There was
an intense interest if Faery that seemed to be surfacing. Amy was
happy that so many people enjoyed her work, but also frustrated she
had to spend more and more time processing orders for the new site
instead of painting, but it posed a challenge to learn to balance
her career. |
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In early 2001 Hot Topic
stores happened upon Amy's site and contacted her about licensing
various articles for their stores. After the first stickers and
postcards hit the stores, Amy's web traffic began to multiply at a
ridiculous rate. A new group of people was now seeing her work for the
first time; a younger generation. Hot Topic went all out and began
expanding their line of Amy Brown Faery items. Many wonderful
opportunities grew from the exposure at Hot Topic and Amy credits Hot
Topic as being largely responsible for helping to bring Faeries into the
mainstream.
In 2002, Chimera Publishing, a friend of Amy's with connections to some
well known publishers, offered to help her look for a publisher to do
her first art book. Alas, they had no luck. Publishers felt they could
not market her art. Amy knew she could make this work, because the
number one request from her customers was for a book. Chimera offered to
publish the book themselves and they embarked on the job immediately.
Amy was so happy about the opportunity, she paid for part of the 1st
printing. The long awaited book was released in January 2003. The
success of the first book was so great; they came out with a second
volume mid-2005. Amy is currently fiddling with ideas for future books,
but has not settled on anything solid yet.
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Amy Caught Drawing |
"I would like to
thank everyone who has been so supportive over the years; fans,
friends, family, fellow artists, and companies. I would also like to
thank all of the artists (past and present) who have been so
inspiring to me and all Faery artists around the world. It's a
wonderful time we live in when we can share our dreams and
inspirations so freely with others and work to bring more beauty to
the world. Keep believing and keep creating!"
~Amy |
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)
Artists:
Brian and Wendy Froud, Michael Parkes, Stephanie Law, Brom
Greatest Inspiration: Brian Froud and Michael Parkes
Color: RED
Food: Halibut Oscar
Dessert: White chocolate strawberry pie
Music: Loreena McKennitt, The Smiths, Coldplay, Keane
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 lazy but pleasant 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?) New
crush (sorry Orlando, I hope we can still be friends) - Chris
Evans/Johnny Storm the Human Torch-Fantastic Misc. Facts:
I have been painting faeries since 1992, 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.
 AMY BROWN TRIVIA
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Amy's work was used
in an episode of the TV comedy "My Name is Earl." In the episode, Earl
is dating a woman whose home is decorated with faeries and fantasy
creatures. If you look close, Amy's pictures are hung by the bed and
her books are on the coffee table.
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Amy's work was used
to decorate the little girl's room in the movie "Inhabited".
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Amy paints, draws and
writes with her left hand, but does most everything else with her
right.
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In early February
2006, the set designers for "My Name is Earl" used Amy's work in
another episode. Watch closely as Earl enters a book store and the
back of Amy's first book moves across the screen as a customer pulls
it from the shelf.
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In "Ringers-Lord of
the Fans", a documentary about fans of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, during an interview with the caretakers of "Hobbiton USA", you
can see several of Amy's prints on the wall behind them. It looks like
the footage was shot in the park's gift shop.
To view more of Amy Brown's
beautiful artwork, please visit her website:
www.amybrownart.com.
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