Amy Hooton's beautiful, colorful art has captivated many. In this interview Amy discusses how she achieves her vibrant abstract works, her creative process, and who inspires her work.

1. You have one of the more colorful galleries here on dA and have earned the title Queen of Colour. The colours in your watercolors are so bright and vivid. How do you achieve such intensity?

The vibrancy is really to do with the materials I use. I fell in love with using acrylic inks because the intensity and range of depth tends to be far more than watercolours. Everything from solid colour to a wash, they behave slightly differently to watercolours but the result can be equally as beautiful. I occasionally use tubes of watercolours too and acrylic paints.

2. What is your creative process when you create abstract works? Do you have something in mind when you start a piece?

It depends on my mood. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to achieve, an image in my mind. But sometimes I haven’t got any ideas at all, artist's block makes me feel miserable so I sit down and prepare my materials with the intention of forcing myself through it. So this is often this process that leads to some of my more abstract weird surreal works. The satisfaction from the break through comes once the work is dry, its so wonderful to discover I actually can see something interesting in the mess, doesn’t always happen of course but if something interesting can come out of this kind of frustration I find the process fascinating. Once the work is dry I often work into my paintings with gold pens to highlight or bring out some of the more subtle details.

3. Do you ever work in other mediums besides watercolor (and photography)?

I’ve worked in many materials over the years. I studied sculpture at college so I worked with anything I could get my hands on. My favourite material then was old plastic sheeting and rope, which I used to cut, knit, knot or sew into weird and wonderful shapes. These days I don’t have so much space so painting suits my imaginative creative urge. Apart from watercolours, acrylic, acrylic inks, gold pens (my usual friends). I also draw with pencils now and again, charcoal, pens, oil pastels, ink etc. I’ve even been known to paint with mud, seemed so appropriate for a Scottish landscape!

4. You seem to be primarily an abstract painter, but you also do photography. Have you ever thought of trying to capture more abstract images in that medium?

Its something I like to do in conjuncture with my painting but I don’t tend to upload all my photos to dA, just a few of the best, as my painting is really what I want people to focus on. Last year I did some collaborative abstract photography with my fiancé and I continue to be very interested in capturing abstract photos.

5. What are your favourite abstract works? Choose one of your own, and one from another artist.

Its very hard to pick just one of my own paintings, they are all my babies, some of them I love more than others of course so for the sake of this interesting comparison I shall pick “Chivalry behind the Face”. If ever I think my work is off the wall and doesn’t fit in anywhere I just look at the work of Wassily Kandinsky and it reassures me that I’m not the only crazy one! My favourite Kandinsky painting is Improvisation 9 from 1910. Infact I love all of Kandisnsky’s work but I particularly like this one, the colours and abstract composition is just amazing. Shame he couldn’t have given it a better name, but perhaps that would have distracted from his intention.


"Improvisation 9" by Kandinsky

"Chivalry behind the Face" by *amyhooton

6. Which female artists, whether on dA or otherwise, do you draw inspiration from?

I’ve always been a fan of British artist Cornelia Parker’s sculptural installations. They are incredible to behold. I’ve always been fascinated by processes of making and she uses very interesting methods for arriving at unique creative destinations.

More on Cornelia Parker: [link]

7. What do you want people to know about you and your work that they may not already?

In recent years a lot of people have asked me about the techniques I use to create my work. I am not normally a secretive person, but for some reason, I have never parted with my particular methods. I have dropped clues every now and then… therefore an astute fan may one day put them all together. My art is not always for the public's eye, it is also for me and is sometimes kept behind closed doors, so maybe for this reason, I keep it to myself. Not really a lot to know, but what does one say?

I’m also in the middle of building my new website, amyhooton.com [link], so keep your eyes peeled!

Excellent. I'll be sure to bookmark your site! Thank you, Amy!

Here are some works from Amy's gallery:




Interviewed by =peggymintun

This interview is one of many that recognizes and celebrates the awesome women artists on deviantArt during International Women's Week. You can read more about IWW here: *int-womens-week