Artist Interviews 2025

Hope Christofferson   
By Laura Siebold



Hope Christofferson brings fairies and other mythical creatures into our life. Her watercolor paintings invite the viewer to partake in the magic she puts on the page. In her interview, she talks about her first fantasy love – dragons – and reveals what fascinates her about those mythical creatures. She introduces us to fairytales and her own sensitivity that she channels into her art. Hope’s interest in “speculative evolution” allows her to imagine an alternate reality at the intersection of the past, present and future. Let Hope open her “window into another world” over the course of this interview.



Can you please try to describe your art in three words? Please go into detail about why you chose those three words.

Fantastical! I always love to quite noticeably warp reality, as it's so easy to make impossible possible in art, that I find twisting the laws of normal life to be the greatest power of art. Watery would be my second word. I say this because I use watercolor in all my pieces, and even in my sculptural work, I maintain a flowing, organic language of form. I rarely use geometric or straight lines, and as such, my work flows! And the third word would be reverential, as I really admire all the things I paint, whether those be dragons, horses, flowers, or faraway realms. So, for me, it is an act of homage to anything that I love enough to spend time emulating. 




When did you first think of yourself as an artist? What led up to this moment?

I think I began to think of myself as a “real” artist when I made my first sale of a fairy painting on Instagram. I was 16 at the time and realizing that there was someone in the world who would sacrifice their money for something I had made up, really allowed me to see value in my work. Before this, I made art because I was a creative kid, and it was my outlet! I had little expectation of making a living doing it. 




How did you find your unique style and voice as an artist?

Lots and lots of time, copying, and second-guessing myself. I still question if I have a style, and sometimes I really don’t like my style because it can feel trapping, but at the end of the day, art comes in waves. I just kept making stuff until I looked behind me one day and realized my style was scattered about the past path I’d walked! 




Your watercolor art is magical and mystical. What fascinates you about dragons, and which stories do you tell with your art?

Dragons were my first fantasy love because my parents gave me books with them flying about on their pages. So many little kids have a dragon love, as modern society has retained a deep admiration for these beasts. I could go into a wormhole about the deep evolutionary and cultural symbology of the dragon, but brevity is the soul of wit, so I will just say that dragons are the most powerful of all mythical beasts. What’s not to love about fire and invincibility when you're little and vulnerable? I try to tell stories about overcoming fear and the animal friends that can aid us on our journeys through life. The mythical creatures I paint are based on real-life animals I know. 




What made you choose watercolors as your primary medium of expression? How do you capture the essence of your subjects with watercolor?

I have tried oil and acrylic, but watercolor is so organic, natural, and has a luminescent quality that has always allured me. You can get such amazing textures with salt and the random flow of water; it is often like working with a living element. Because water is always moving, it imbues this into animal life-forms, as living beings are in constant flux just as water is. 




How do you translate your inner feelings and thoughts into fairy tales?

This is so hard! Well, I am sensitive and dramatic, so when I feel something intensely such as grief, heartbreak, fear, etc…, I am given energy from this intense emotion that is intuitively channeled into the closet fairytale or myth that lives in my mind where I associated the feelings of the characters with the same feelings I am currently experiencing. When I first learned a fairytale, I loved it for its visual appeal, but as I go through life, I am seeing how deeply true and archetypal they are, and how so many of us live in the mirror of their fantasies. 




What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned throughout your career?

It’s 90% in my mind- both the good and bad. I mentioned the sensitivity and emotions being the driving force behind my output. This emotional side of me has made me overreact to wins and losses, when in reality art as a career does not have to be painful. To follow my inspiration and allow for inner kindness is my biggest lesson thus far, and I hope to always remember that this pursuit of wonder is a privilege. 




How do myth and technology intersect in your art?

This is a great question… I am wondering if this refers to how art can use myth to predict future technologies. I am very interested in speculative evolution, as I think about how science will affect agriculture and the preservation and documentation of Earth’s species. I think a lot about fiction, and how I get to imagine pasts and futures that never were. Using mashups like Medievalism, the Wild West, and space exploration to collapse different time periods into new hybrids. The Greek myths and personified gods will always attract my mind, as they influenced Western culture, so I like to use these ancient systems of belief to speak about modern myths today. 




You teach watercolor painting courses, specifically a Watercolor Sea Dragon Course What can participants expect from this course?

Yes, this was a truly wonderful course to design. It was like filming a movie but in a choose-your-own-adventure style, as I was taking the camera with me, exploring the shoreline of the Pacific Coast, pretending to find paleontological samples to design a sea-dragon. The main concept of the course centers around using nature to inform one’s imagination. To make fantasy believable, some reality must be sprinkled in. We cover everything from simple sketching to detailed layering to create a wonderfully vibrant window into another world. 




What do you consider your greatest accomplishment as an artist?

You know, I think being happy is something that brings me a lot of joy. This may sound silly, but no matter what happens externally, all things fade. So, it is best to be in love with a mindset that allows one to delve into the realms of curiosity with energy and true enthusiasm. I have had so many ups and downs in my career that enjoying the ride is something that took me a while to do, and as long as I am doing that, I am golden.