Kindred Spirit: Amariah Rauscher

Am and I met through CafeMom. I admire her illustrations. She is technically a very talented and exacting draftsperson and yet her work is very whimsical. I love her compositions. There are many artists who don't grasp the concept of composition, Am embraces it! I could go on and on about her work but I would prefer you to meet her, in her own words. So without further ado here is Amariah Rauscher:

I live in a small town in central Illinois with my fabulous husband and four great kids. I love my camera, punctuality, cartoons, chocolate ice cream, riding my bike, and Project Runway. I hate shopping, naps, Danielle Steel novels, cleaning, cooking, coffee, hot weather, waking up early, and the television series House. I also hate office buildings, and cough syrup. I've had around 40 jobs in the last twelve years, every morning I drink a cup of green tea, I have a hard time falling asleep at night, I could eat spaghetti every day, my favorite movie is Lord of the Rings, I'm in a bowling league, I go to the gym several times a week, I have a dry sense of humor, and I'm afraid of heights.

My Etsy shop (www.theextentofsilence.etsy.com) was started in April 2009. I sell original art and prints. In addition to that, I do a lot of custom portraits. Most of my work is charcoal, or charcoal and pastel. Recently, I’ve started making more full color illustrations. Being able to do portraits has been a definite help to me- I would say that portraits make up about 75% of the work I get.

I’ve always considered myself a portrait artist first. For many years, I drew/painted only traditional portraits in traditional mediums. About a year ago I became bored with drawing strictly realistic people- I really wanted to start making things that were different. So I began thinking about how to draw people realistically, but in a more imaginative way. This is my first attempt at that:

Unlike my previous work, this drawing was made with charcoal and pastel – rather than just pastel or just charcoal. I was very happy with the results and everything took off from there.

*If you could invite any 5 people (alive or dead, it is a theoretical question :o) to your place for dinner, who would you invite and what would you serve?

My husband J

J.R.R. Tolkien

Sophie Scholl

Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked)

Vigo Mortenson

I would serve my guests spaghetti :)

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Am as much as I have. You can see and find out more about Amariah's work at The Extent of Silence or her blog. (and yes I am eyeballing the "It's a Small World "print above!:o)