Last year I featured a tiny house artist and everyone seemed to enjoy the diversion. Amy Woodbury contacted me recently and shared with me her artistic take of tiny and small houses. I liked them so much I wanted to share them with you. I’ll let Amy tell you a little about herself and her art work.
I love to paint just about anything. Figures, landscapes, abstracts, you name it. What got me started with houses and other structures, both real and imagined, was a 400 sq. ft. rental cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on Lake Superior. It was the summer of 2007, my husband’s sabbatical year and we lived in cabin #4 for two whole weeks.
It was bliss: he worked on his music and I painted. It also dawned on us that the house we had back home in Illinois, was way more than we needed, 1800 sq. ft. So we drove to town, hooked up our laptop and began our small house search.
I’ll skip all the gruesome details about selling and buying in 2008 and jump right to the happy ending: an English Cottage, built in 1924 and just under 900 sq. ft. The house we were meant to have.
This little cabin painting also jumpstarted the house commissions part of my business. I do not paint anatomically correct interpretations; they can be a bit quirky with some motion to them. At the moment, I am exploring other ways to work and layer the paint, rendering the portrait a bit more abstract and mysterious, as seen in Bungalow, below.
For more images and information about my work, please visit my website:
www.amyowoodbury.com and www.artworldchicago.com
Your fellow tiny house blog subscriber and believer,
Amy O. Woodbury
Thank you Amy for sharing your beautiful and interesting work with us. I hope you will continue to find tiny house inspiration on the blog and maybe convert some of the houses showcased here into artwork.
Lovely paintings
glad you like them . i LOVE to paint them.
Love the paintings! Amy really captures the personalities of each place.
the personalities. that’s what drew me to make them…
What serendipity! Utter, whole. First, I love the art- and your English Cottage painting just glows with your happiness with it, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us- that’s to Kent and Amy: Thank you so much. How amazing is it that Amy is also a regular reader, a part of this community.
The whole ‘what serendipity’ is because I had just stumbled across an art show seemingly of Small Living (my sort: bit desperate and worried about homelessness, not downsizing), an installation including a camper behind a bicycle (functioning), a liveable Shanty, a Home Tent…it’s an art installation, I guess you’d say, with paintings and drawings as well- realism.
That is why I came here just now. Silly sounding as I type it, but it almost seems like a message: as I’ve been sick for some time now my art supplies have been a still life gaining dust at levels Geologists could strata and assign periods to. I think you’ve given me impetus to shove through the sickness and paint what hopes I DO have. Again, more thanks.
But I came here to share this, below, should anyone want to see for themselves online or in Gallery. It is at NINE FOUR ONE Gallery, in San Francisco CA for anyone in those parts- but there’s lots of pics too, 27 online, to peruse- so everyone can delight in exactly what Kent’s post is celebrating: Art that speaks so wonderfully to the passion that brings us all together here. And in as many ways as there are readers, houses and hopes. I’m a sap.
http://941geary.com/shows/kevin-cyr
-through June 04, 2011
Well, as always, I blow in and out of here once a month or so, jabbering away. I appreciate the patience or the decency in lack of flaming.
LBJ
thank you for the exhibit link. so very cool. i wish you all the luck in your healing. let your art show the way..
I live down the street from Amy Woodbury and can say that NOT ONLY is she a tremendous artist, but she is a wonderful neighbor. She holds an annual “Art Yard Sale” when she hangs her paintings from the trees, and it’s just so magical.
You rock, Amy!!!
Your neighbor Jessica
the “wonderful neighbor” works both ways.
thanks jessica.
Thankyou for posting this Amy. I love your paintings, and it also makes the Tiny House community feel more community-y. If you see what I mean. Small living is by its nature about so much more than the ‘bricks and mortar’. Lets celebrate that more.
thank you gemma. small living. big hearts.
:-))
My granddaughter gives your art a great big enthusiastic “Awwwwwwwwww!” usually reserved for cute animals. Good inspiration for her, she also likes drawing houses. Four thumbs up in our house!
i’m honored – kids are the real masters when it comes to art.
thanks alice.
I would love to live in a house that looks exactly like your paintings, Amy, instead of the ordinary ones that are actually built!
wow. thank you benjamin.
I love to see someone take their passion and turn it into fantasy for all to partake! Reminds me of children’s story books of which I am a big fan even at my old age…keep on keepin’ on!
deborah. i own a series of children’s books that belonged to my mom and they have been a source of inspiration more than once. they are rich…
These are lovely. It’s as if you’ve captured the inner feel of each place. Thank you for sharing!
they’re such a joy to do.
thanks cj.
Way to go Amy — all the way to the edge! I love how the houses seem to fit so happily and contentedly within the frame – just like a life fills a tiny house
i like the metaphor denise…