Interview with illustrator & Digital Artist Amy Robins

Amy Robins is a figuartive and fine art Painter and illustrator who's works are held in private and corporate collections around the world and today Amy talks with Marcin Migdal from Mad Artist Publishing about life, career and more. Amy won the 2012 Nelson Hewitson Prize for Fine Art and has been featured in Print Magazine, Huffington Post, Colored Pencil Magazine, Platte Productions Publishing and other publications. 

Marcin: Hi Amy, thanks for being here with me, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Amy: Thanks for having me! I’m 21 years old and currently studying in Wales, although I’m from England originally. 

Marcin: How did you get involved with art, as a child is it always what you wanted to do?

Amy: Actually I didn’t discover art as a hobby until I was a teenager, and it was quite a sudden realization that it was what I wanted to do. I haven’t looked back since. 

Marcin: Did you go to school to study art? 

Amy: I am studying Fine Art at the University of Wales, Newport at the moment and I’ll be graduating next summer. I studied photography for a couple of years previously, so I am trained in both art forms. 

Marcin: How have your friends and family felt about you pursuing art as a potential career? 

Amy: They are incredibly supportive! My family is quite artistic so I am lucky in that sense. 

Marcin: Your pencil renderings are unbelievably photo-realistic, how would you describe your style? 

Amy: I’m interested in ‘traditional’ arts’ relationship with photography and vice versa. Lot of my preoccupations lie in thetranslation of an image from a photograph to a drawn one, especially with many images now being created and presented digitally. 

Marcin: And can you describe your workflow and process? 

Amy: Generally speaking I don’t use grids or other visual guides when composing a drawing, and I often draw from the image displayed on my computer screen and go by my own judgement. I tend to work solidly on a drawing, spending several hours a day on it. The drawing itself is made relatively quickly; it’s the planning beforehand that consumes much of my time. 

"Stick to what you love doing... and keep working at it." ~ Amy Robins

Marcin: Why would you say you are so good?

Amy: Years of solid practice and dedication, that’s all!

Marcin: What has been your most memorable assignment and why? 

Amy: ‘Gaya’, most definitely. The scale of the piece is much larger than anything I’d worked on before and the detail was very challenging. 

Marcin: What do you feel is the most challenging thing about a career as an artist? 

Amy: Getting recognition for my work; with so many self-publicized artists on the internet I think it’s very difficult to stand out nowadays. 

Marcin: How do you market or promote yourself and your work? 

Amy: Until now I have mainly used art-community platforms on the internet, but I am currently planning to enter in some national art competitions with the aim of gaining more exposure and creating a new audience for my work. 

Marcin: Is there anybody or anything you would love to draw? 

Amy: The more visually complex the subject, the better! I’m not too interested in drawing well-known personalities, my interest is in the aesthetic power of an image. 

Marcin: What do you feel is the most vital element of an image? 

Amy: An image needs to be eye-catching and beautiful in some way to entice the viewer... in the same way a movie needs to entertain the audience, now matter what the underlying message is. 

Marcin: What advice do you have for somebody who wants to pursue a career as an artist? 

Amy: I think you need a lot of determination, and you need to be able to take the blows and keep going no matter what. It’s a tough industry to break in to. 

Marcin: What is your greatest fear? 

Amy: Letting myself down. 

Marcin: What talent would you most like to have? 

Amy: I would love to be multi-talented so that I could adapt to anything! 

Marcin: Something you’re still learning? 

Amy: Everything! 

Marcin: Which 5 words would your friends describe you as? 

Amy: Hard working, patient, clumsy, daft! 

Marcin: And the last question, if you had one wish… 

Amy: I wish to lead a happy life, whatever that entails... 

Marcin: Oh one more, if someone said ‘how can I be the next Amy Robins?’ What would you say? 

Amy: Stick to what you love doing... and keep working at it. 

Marcin: Thank you Amy for telling us about you, hopefully this is one step closer to getting you exposure:) 

Amy: Thanks Marcin, your readers can find out more about me at www.amyrobins.com and illustrationVAULT.com/Amy-Robins and www.amy-robins.tumblr.com