Amber Hawkins

​My name is Amber Hawkins. I was raised in the beautiful countryside of New England. The Green Mountains of Vermont and The Catskills of upstate New York which is where I spent most of my childhood. It was in high school that I fell in love with painting, but it was only a hobby of mine.  We had moved to the South my senior year of high school and it was time to move on to more serious endeavors. I laid my brushes down for a good many years.  I’ve had a successful 25year career in logistics and warehouse management and I've raised 4 children with my wonderfully loyal and supportive husband.  It was a deep trauma that made me pick up my brushes again.  A therapy of sorts.  ​If you’ve ever been separated from something you love for a very long time, you know once that connection is made again the flood gates open.  You just can’t help it.  That was me and my painting.  Just holding brushes in my hand makes me happy.  It grounds me and strengthens me.  I haven’t put them back down since.  I’ve been inspired by and admired so many of the great artists. Van Gogh, Monet…I definitely lean toward the more realistic representations. Though I appreciate it in it’s form, I’m not entirely fond of the more full on abstract styles.  Artists like Norman Rockwell and Bob Ross, now they are just amazing to me.  The grace in which they make the brushes dance on the canvas just intrigues me.  The Little details…oh they are amazing! Every Artist has a niche right?  A style, an identifier of some kind unique to them.  Well I haven’t found mine.  I just love to paint!  Anything can catch my attention and inspire a painting.  A person, A tree, a flower a stack of old books…it doesn’t matter.  There’s an old song that my Father used to play when I was a kid.  Dolly Parton wrote it and it’s often on repeat in my head.  It’s called God’s coloring book.  It talks about just sitting and looking around you. Seeing the colors and the details in everything and realizing that each day and each image that our eyes focus on is just another page in God’s Coloring Book.  Those lyrics made me think.  I suppose God is my true inspiration.  He is the original creator of ever masterpiece.