Amy Bryan

Amy Bryan is an artist from New Orleans, Louisiana. She creates photographs, drawings, and work in various media. She has always created portraits of people and now she also creates bird portraits. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Howard University in Printmaking and her Bachelor of Arts from Xavier University of Louisiana in Studio Art. During high school she studied art at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). In recent years she has exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, The New Orleans Healing Center, and Stella Jones Gallery. Here work was also featured in an article in New Orleans Art Review in spring 2018. She is an educator who has taught on all academic levels for twenty years. She is often inspired by her students and teaching.

I have been drawing human and bird portraits, as well as photographing birds, butterflies and a few other subjects.

I have always had an interest in drawing human portraits, which I continue to do. I usually draw portraits from my mind that are sometimes influenced by people I see. Otherwise, my recent interest in nature photography, drawings and paintings started as an effort to observe blue jay birds better to draw them. They were not easy to draw due to their intricate patterning and fast-moving nature.

I noticed blue jays when in June 2019 I was coming out of the church I grew up in. I had just attended a church service with my parents that celebrated their 50th anniversary. My husband and I had gotten married there two years earlier. When my husband and I walked to our car and looked up we saw a pretty blue jay by a pink flower. It was the first time I noticed one. Then I began to see more blue jays. They made me feel calm and inspired. That is when I began to draw them.

In March 2020 when we were all in quarantine due to the COVID 19 pandemic I began to photograph blue jays. I had almost forgotten about my interest in photography, that I had developed as a student in high school, college, and graduate school. I started taking pictures with a cell phone, then tried out several cameras and lenses until I was photographing birds all of the time. I practiced on other birds until I would see a blue jay again. I was no longer photographing birds and nature only to draw; I was also taking photographs for their own sake.

I became interested in many other birds, including woodpeckers, monk parakeets, white ibises, cardinals, finches, cedar waxwings, pelicans, etc. In addition to birds, I photograph butterflies, some insects, and the moon. My bird portraits often capture the personalities of the birds like my human portraits.

Some media I use are colored pencils, acrylic paint, watercolor markers, brush pens, paper and fabric.