Sketchpad
I will be a vendor at a wonderful fundraising event for the Providence St Peter Foundation. It is new this year and is called LADIES NIGHT OUT for guests 21 and over.
What - Ladies’ Night Out - a night of beverages, savory and sweet treats and shopping! A shopping bag and one complimentary drink are included and most vendors will be giving away small gifts as well as selling a wide variety of gift items. I will have paintings prints cards and ceramic tiles. Please come see me and have fun while supporting a worthy cause.
Wear casual holiday attire!
When - Monday November 28, 6-9 pm
Where - Olympia Red Lion Hotel
2300 Evergeen ParK Dr
Olympia WA
Tickets - $50 - Purchase by calling 360.493.7981
www.provforest.org
Happy Holidays
Amy
November 13th, 2011
There is an new artsy resale shop / vintage boutique in Lacey called Retro 360. It is located just west of St Martin’s Marcus Pavilion on Pacific Avenue in Lacey WA (4821 Pacific Ave SE STE B 455-4637) Retro360Boutique@yahoo.com
The clothing, shoes, boots and accessories are in new or nearly new condition, many are name brand (I found a beautiful embroidered Chicos shirt for $15), and there’s no back of the closet odor found in so many other resale shops. Check it out!
Amy
November 6th, 2011
A great way to start any painting session is to make thumbnail sketches. Whatever subject you have in mind or in view demands a composition. Composition is the arrangement of shapes within a format. The shapes you draw are positive shapes. The shapes created by the spaces between the lined shapes you draw become the negative shapes. Imagine your positive shapes are collage pieces. As you move the (positive shape) pieces around you are dynamically changing the negative shapes! So you can see how important negative shapes are - they are the first design element to consider in creating an interesting composition.
Thumbnails get their name from their size - perhaps as small as your thumb but usually for me between about 1 x 2 and 2 x 3 inches. To begin - Draw vertical (portrait) and horizontal (landscape) rectangles on sketch paper. Then make quick sketches of your subject capturing the dominant positive shapes in these small formats. Draw up a page of them until you can determine your best starting point for arranging shapes before you begin working with paint.
This exercise not only provides a good starting point but also calms your mind and allows you to transition more readily into creative work.
Let me know how this works for you!
Amy
October 9th, 2011
Of all my work done over decades I feel akin to my drawings…sketches mostly. If the house were burning I might rush to save my sketchbooks before any other art work. The reason is the sketches are like little stories, visual ideas that reflect on a particular time and place (at least, recognizable to me in that way).
Drawing is an observation pathway, a discipline that links me with my subject and puts me in a space separate from thinking. The white paper is the void and once a mark is made shapes begin to form. It is magic really, sacred stuff if I can keep my inner critic out of the experience. So I recommend it to nearly everyone. and now at a newly busy time of my life that pulls me from my studio more often than not, I am reminding myself too, to go back to pencil and paper. So I am assigning myself a drawing a day - quick and painless when time is short…and a way to practice, and stay engaged with my creativity.
Namaste
Amy
February 13th, 2011
DAY — SATURDAY NOV 20
TIME — 10 - 4
WHERE — NORTH OLYMPIA FIRE STATION, 5046 BOSTON HARBOR RD NE OLYMPIA WA
Please join me again this year for the annual show and sale sponsored by Friends of Olympia Library to raise money for book purchases and special events at the library. I will be selling painted ceramic tiles, cards and prints. The tiles can be purchased framed for use as a trivet or wall art - perfect for gift giving.
The show has been moved to A LARGER VENUE so if you came last year and felt squeezed by the tight space, please come again this year. There will be plenty of room. The larger space allowed the library to invite more artists - over 25 ARTISTS offering a delightful variety of fine arts and crafts.
If you cannot come to the sale and would like to see this work in my studio, send me an email at amycfisher360@gmail.com to set up an appointment.
Otherwise, I’ll see you there
Thanks for your support
Amy
November 12th, 2010
The other evening my husband called my attention to a beautifully melodic bird song coming from the vicinity of the 50 year-old apple tree in our backyard. After searching the leafy tree in vain I picked up Morse’s “Birds of the Puget Sound Region” and began checking song descriptions of thrushes and warblers. The Varied thrush was a possibility but it is seldom seen in our suburban yard. I flipped the pages some more and just as I read ” a melodious song, long whistled warble likened to drunken robin” the so-described Black-headed grosbeak (Pheuticus melanocephalus) swooped from the recesses of the Gravenstein, and landed on a glass garden ornament just 20 feet from my seat at the kitchen table just inside our glass back door. He posed for at least two minutes; his tawny breast and rump standing out in bold contrast with his glossy black head and back. I’d known the Black-headed grosbeak previously only by its sharp one-note call, a call that led me to nickname it “Johnny one-note”. What a pleasure now to recognize its musical song as well and have my evening weeding accompanied by their long, light melodies .
May 26th, 2010
Materials tip - If you like fine line ink sketching, the Paper Mate Pro-FIT retractable ball point pen F 0.7 mm is a great, inexpensive tool. I bought a box of 12 at Office Depot. They have a rubber grip that adds comfort and reduces hand fatigue. I like the feel of the pen as it glides smoothly over the paper.
Remember to carry paper and pen or pencil with you always!
Namaste and happy drawing
Amy
February 20th, 2010
HI
THANKS TO ALL WHO CAME TO THE SUCCESSFUL ART SHOW AND SALE TO BENEFIT THE OLYMPIA LIBRARY LAST WEEKEND. THE GREAT NEWS IS THAT I WILL BE THERE AGAIN THIS FRIDAY TAKING THE PLACE OF SOMEONE WHO HAD TO CANCEL AT THE LAST MINUTE. I HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME LAST WEEKEND; I HOPE YOU WILL FIND TIME TO COME SEE MY WORK AND THE DIVERSE OFFERINGS OF THE OTHER ELEVEN ARTISTS, a different group this week, so if you came last weekend, you will see different delightfully beautiful things on Friday!
WHERE:OLYMPIA TIMBERLAND LIBRARY 313 8TH AVE SE OLYMPIA WA 360-352-0595
WHEN: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11TH 3 - 8PM
ANY QUESTIONS? SEND AN EMAIL TO amy@amyfisherart.com
happy holidays
Amy
December 9th, 2009
Mark your calendars now. December 4th (Friday) 4 - 8 pm and December 5th (Saturday) 9 am - 4:30 pm I will be at the downtown Olympia WA Library at 313 8th Ave SE. Please come. I’ll have cards, prints, original w/c and acrylic paintings and painted tiles. The tiles and original paintings are recent work and not shown anywhere else prior to this sale. Proceeds go in part to support The Friends of Olympia Library. Go to their website for more info http://www.olympiafriends.com
Or write to me with any questions you might have. If you come to the show and know me only through my website, please introduce yourself. Sign my guest book to receive invitations to future shows and events.
See you there
Namaste
Amy
November 7th, 2009
The call of a loon is a haunting, ethereal sound, traveling over a lake like a smooth flat rock skipping its surface. I thought about the loon this morning when the song of the Swainson’s thrush greeted me in the dense woods, its liquid, rising trill riquocheting off branches of neighboring trees confusing its location. I know what one looks like but have never actually seen it clearly.
In “The Forest Lover”, a marvelous novel based on the life of Emily Carr, Susan Vreeland writes about an even more liquid voice, a sound I yearn to hear again - “A hermit thrush spilled one long crystalline note, stilling all the earth to listen, and then poured out an ethereal flute song, over too soon. She closed her eyes, waited. Again, that purest of tones, long-held, chillingly beautiful and then the cascade of melody like a tumbling stream. A spirit song.” These voices singing out of deep recesses are indeed seductive spirit songs.
Other titles by Vreeland I highly recommend are: “The Girl in Hyacinth Blue” (the tale of a painting by Vemeer as it changes hands backward in time; and “The Passion of Artemesia” based on the life of the Floretine renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Vreeland has such an adept connection to the sensibility of an artists’ life, interwoven into the culture, geography and time. I read “The Passion of Artemesia” several years ago before traveling to Florence and it provided such a rich historical background for my real-time experience.
Ah, more bird notes - We were recently in SoCal at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands Ecological Preserve, a saltwater marsh north of Huntington Beach just off the Pacific Coast Highway. For the first time in my life I saw Skimmers, magnificently graceful black and white birds with red and black beaks. I think they are the only bird with a longer lower mandible. True to its name it flies low, skimming the water with its projected, red-spotted lower bill acting as a lure. The lure having been set, the Skimmer swings back around and catches its fish! …truly captivating to watch.
We saw a multitude of nesting terns, mostly Forster’s but also the Least terns, an endangered species. Fortunately the Least terns were protected from humans by a tall chain-link fence. As we watched the sitting terns we caught a glimpse of movement, to our delight made by speckled, fuzzy chicks, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding pebbled sand. We happened to be at the right place at the right time.
What makes birds so captivating? their beauty, brevity, movement, colors, shapes, spirit.
Send me your bird stories.
Namaste
Amy
June 30th, 2009
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