Events at Addison Art Gallery At the Addison Art Gallery Events at Addison Art Gallery Directions to Addison Art Gallery Addison Art Gallery Newsletter Addison Art Gallery - About Art Books Prints Contact Addison Art Gallery
 
Penny Billings
Jeff Bonasia
Joan Brancale
Joan Brancale
Vera Champlin
Mark Chester
Ann Trainor Domingue
Rick Fleury
Stephanie Foster
Garry Gilmartin
Garry Gilmartin
Logan Hagege
Marc Hanson
Michael Harrell
Joyce Johnson, sculptor
Peter Kalill
Cate Hunter Kashem
Kim Kettler
Don Krohn
Marc Kundmann
Barney Levitt
Barney Levitt
David Mesite
Mary L. Moquin
John Murphy
Colin Page
Nick Patten
Elizabeth Pratt
Jo Ann Ritter
Amy Sanders
Paul Schulenburg
Pharr Schulenburg
Julie Snyder
Olivier Suire Verley
Eric Emile Walker
Sarah J. Webber
Robert Wisner
Creative Convergence
Paintapalooza
 

Amy Sanders

 

Amy Sanders - Pastels
Amy Sanders - Prints
About Amy Sanders
Amy Sanders

     

 

Rolling in Again
Pastel
Image Size 12.5 x 14.5
Framed 19 x 21
$1,600

 
Amy Sanders
     

 

Construction Site
Pastel
Image Size 11.75 x 12.5
Framed 17.375 x 18.25
$1,400

  Amy Sanders
     

 

Reflections
Pastel
Image Size 7.5 x 7.5
Framed 13.25 x 13.25
$800

  Amy Sanders
   

“This is a still life set up courtesy of nature — a bayside tidepool. I was drawn to it partially because it included so much red, but mostly because of the incredible reflections with the wave having just receded and having left a thin sheen of water over everything. There's lots of seawater still there, and making the texture of the rocks show through a water reflection was an incredible technical challenge. It was critical to capture the reflection of the rocks on each other, and of the bright blue sky in all that seawater.”

     

 

 

Show Off
Pastel
Image Size 10 x 9.5
Framed 18 x 17.5
$950

Amy Sanders
   

“This prickly pear cactus grows all over my yard, and has since I was a little girl here. It’s a nuisance much of the time (lots of little hair thorns that are hard to see and even harder to remove, but hurt like crazy). However, when this cactus blooms, the yard erupts into a yellow frenzy which is just spectacular. With this piece I decided to try a bit looser of a style and play with a wide variety of colors, in keeping with the flashiness of the cactus.”

     

 

Wave Dancers
Pastel
Image Size 9 x 9
Framed 17.5 x 17.5
$900

Amy Sanders
   

“This is Nature's composition along the edge of the shore. What attracted me to it was the unique pattern on the main rock, which reminded me of the petroglyphs done by Native Americans on stones in the Southwest. (for all we know they did them here, too, but the weather here would have erased any evidence). I see a joyful figure playing along the curl of the wave. I feel a spirit in that stone.”

 

30 Knots Straight Out
of the Northwest

Pastel
Image Size 18.5 x 22
Framed 26.5 x 30
$3,800

  Amy Sanders
   

“I have been walking this Cape Cod bay beach (a local one, for me) all of my life, and this is a typical late summer/early fall scenario where the weather pattern sets up with clear crisp air and a stiff breeze out of the northeast. When the wind gets to a certain level, the water’s surface begins to whip up into this white froth that runs in straight lines with the wind. The waves also chop up like you see here. At the time I decided to tackle this, I was looking for a challenge in terms of technique, and I was really inspired by not only the sheer beauty of this type of scene, but the challenge of rendering the intricacy needed to convey the water pattern accurately. When I look at this piece now, as when I was working on it, I can feel that wind, and the spray of water against my face. I can hear the roar of the water whipping into that frenzy as if I were standing there.”

     

 

Shell Gazing II
Pastel
Image Size 4 x 5
Framed 12 x 12.5
$600

  Amy Sanders
   

“This painting was inspired by the intricacy and mathematical perfection of the spiral on moon snail shells. Every single one has the same exact spiral, increasing at the same exact rate in the same direction (always clockwise as you look at the top). Add to that all the intricate growth lines and the subtle colors and you have an elegant beauty. I did one with a yellowish cast, as many are, and one with a bluish pink cast, as you often find in older shells.”

     

 

July
Pastel
Image Size 10 x 14
Framed 18 x 22
$1,400

  Amy Sanders
   

“This piece was inspired by the sheer joy of a little fellow just tearing back and forth at the waveline. This little guy did this for nearly a half hour — never darting in closer to the waves, but never fully retreating either.”

     

 

Low Tide Along the Marsh
Pastel
Image Size 9 x 13
$1,300

  Amy Sanders
   

“This piece resulted from a spring walk along the marsh edge at Audubon Wildlife Refuge in Wellfleet. I was taken by the seemingly endless waves of lush marsh grass with the distant thin line of land and water. I aimed to capture the light rustle of the breeze in that grass.”

     

 

Stormy Seas
Pastel
Image Size 16 x 21.5
Framed 24 x 29.5
$2,500

  Amy Sanders
   

“We’re all inspired by this kind of scene — the turbulence, the richness in color and the sheer energy of the ocean around a storm, which in this case was largely offshore.”

     

 

Solitude
Pastel
Image Size 18 x 24
Framed 26 x 30
$4,200

  Amy Sanders - Strength
   

“This tree sat isolated out in the Provincelands, with nothing around for shelter or companionship. I admire its rugged existence. I did the piece for the beauty, and to challenge myself with the shadow of the leaves (there are over 30 colors in that shadow if you look carefully!). A little glimpse of the water in the distance seemed to complete the scene.”

     

Amy SandersTruro artist Amy Katherine Sanders, credits the serenity and beauty of the pine woods, ocean and bay, beaches and dunes of the Outer Cape as the inspiration for most of her art. Her artistic style creates velvety, seamless, richly detailed compelling paintings.
Amy is largely a self-taught artist. She did formative studies with outstanding art teacher Ron Parent for several years and has also painted under the direction of guest artists at Truro's Castle Hill Center for the Arts.

She considers pastel to be her primary medium, although originally she worked in watercolors and was a member of the Connecticut Watercolor Society for many years. She still paints occasionally in watercolors, and even acrylics, but she finds the richness of pastel color and its flexibility allow her to capture more expressively the beauty and depth of the scenes that she is drawn to paint.

Amy is an award winning artist and Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA). Her paintings have been sold in a series of auctions to benefit Truro's Castle Hill Center for the Arts and the Truro Historical Society. She has exhibited in galleries in Connecticut and on the Cape, and has been represented by the Addison Art Gallery of Orleans, Massachusetts since 1998.

She has done commissioned work for Seamen’s Bank of Cape Cod, Blue Gateways Inn, The Depot, and the Wellfleet Congregational Church of Wellfleet, MA, the Truro Historical Society and the Christian Union Church of Truro, and numerous private clients. She continues to welcome commissioned work, including landscapes and portraiture.

 

Artist’s Statement
While painting I become drawn right into the scene. It’s an extraordinary sensation where I can literally feel the sand between my toes, smell the salt air, or hear the roar of the ocean. To bring that sensation to others, that is what it is all about.

People often remark that my paintings look just like photographs and while I think its meant as a compliment (and I take it as such), I don't see them that way at all. Photographs have a flatness to them and a sharpness to the edges — things in the distance are just as sharp, and just as rich in color and detail as things closer to the camera — that make them clearly photographs. Many of my paintings are highly realistic for sure, but the edges are softer, their colors are richer (most vividly noticeable in the shadows or darker areas), and there is more depth to them than one can find in a photograph (things in the distance have much smoother edges, less detail, and a bluer color, more typical of how the eye sees than a camera).

While I often use photographs, or a series of photographs, for reference, I never feel the richness of emotion or the spectacular beauty of a place when I look at a photograph, that I feel when I look at a painting.

 

Awards

  • Honorable Mention, 10th Annual Pastel 100 Competition
    for “Passing Offshore” (13.75 x 12) in Landscapes
    and “The Collection” (9 x 12) in Still Life
    April, 2009 issue of The Pastel Journal

Exhibitions

  • August feature shows 1998-Present
       Addison Art Gallery, Orleans, MA
  • Second Annual Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod Exhibit August, 1997
       Creative Arts Center, Chatham, MA
  • University of Massachusetts Medical Center Gallery Jan.-March, 1997
       Worcester, MA
  • Quinebaug Valley Arts Center Nov.-Dec., 1996
       Southbridge, MA
  • First Annual Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod Exhibit August, 1996
       Creative Arts Center, Chatham, MA

Return to Top of Page

 
Addison Art Gallery Orleans, Cape Cod Art