Amy Brackenbury lives where she was raised on her family's ranch in the foothills of the
Rockies in northern Colorado. It is a lifestyle that she loves, in tune with the outdoors, the
abundant and varied surrounding wildlife and where, she says, "I can have all the pets I want!"
Living on the ranch gives her an opportunity to work from live subjects, and "painting wildlife
lets me do what I like to do best - observing and being in close association with the animals I
love."
It was no surprise to Brackenbury's family when she went to Colorado State University
to study art and painting. "Even when I was a tyke, I felt almost driven to paint and sculpt,"
she says. There were also several proficient artists on both sides of her family. Brackenbury
admires oriental art for its sense of composition, negative space and simplicity. Realism is the
style with which she portrays her animal images, with attention focused on the main subject.
She paints primarily in acrylics, but for fun she may use oils and may "stray to unrelated
abstract subjects."
In between "spending time with my husband, artist Lars Larson, our two daughters,
the animals, the ranch, the garden and a myriad of other distractions, I paint!" Brackenbury is
currently concentrating her efforts on domestic animals. "I feel that they are a range of
subjects that I can present in a whole new way," she says. Brackenbury's effervescent
personality and joie de vivre plainly show in her joyful paintings of her adored animals.
EDUCATION: Colorado State University
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