July Artist Spotlight - Amanda Taylor Spiers

Amanda Taylor Spiers

Our featured artists for July is one of our very own, Amanda Taylor Spiers. Amanda is an artist, art educator and proud member of the Art Factory family. She has been teaching at the Art Factory for six years. She is originally from Roanoke, Virginia and knew from age eight that she wanted to be an art teacher. She graduated with degrees in Studio Art and English Literature from Virginia Tech and a Masters of Art Education from Radford University. She has taught art to all ages from 3 to adult in both private and public schools and in two universities. She is currently a program creator and instructor for the Art Academy at the Art Factory. Amanda lives in Brandermill with her husband of 22 years and children, Callie (14) and Sammy (8).

Amanda’s favorite medium is acrylics but enjoys all types of color mediums. She has illustrated two books. Her most recent is A Jar Full of Kisses by Heather Bennett. Amanda prefers the “old-fashioned” hands-on illustration method of actually painting the pictures. The illustrations for her books were done with watercolors and colored pencils.

Seasons, Sunshine and Squirrels is the best way to sum up all the paintings Amanda has created lately. She is drawn to the quiet beauty of a seemingly ordinary landscape. She loves when trees are backlit by the afternoon sun and when endless fields meet a perfectly blue sky. With family in Utah, Amanda gets a lot of inspiration from regular trips out west . And when she isn’t painting nature, she is likely painting her other biggest inspiration – squirrels. Amanda’s most recent squirrel obsession has manifested itself in the form of squirrelly spoofs” of famous art.