After studying at Hammersmith School of Art, Amy Elton won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools (1925-1930), winning the premier award for drawing a figure from life. She went on to create block-printed fabrics for Fortnum & Mason and other fashion and design houses. She worked in the Aran Islands, studied in Paris and first visited Cornwall in 1938 before travelling to India later that year. From 1942 to 1945 she worked as a war artist in India.

In 1953 Amy Elton returned to the UK, spending the rest of her life in Devon, but frequently visiting Cornwall to work and to visit friends and family. Along with Francis Evelyn MIDDLEDITCH and Clifford FISHWICK, she was a member of the Kenn Group, a society of professional artists which held annual group shows in Exeter College of Art or the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM).

While block-printing, painting and diamond-point glass engraving were her primary focus, she also taught part-time at Hammersmith School of Art, St Paul's Girls School (where she worked with Gustav Holst and A P Herbert on musical productions), at an approved school, Exeter Prison, a secondary modern, a convent and a teachers' training college, among others.