I am in a third decade of making art as a serious, dedicated pursuit.
I began as a painter using traditional materials in a conventional way. My work has evolved in a slow, fairly regular fashion. The imagery has remained constant, typically solitary women in interior settings, as well as landscape and still life studies. The landscape paintings are sometimes rural and populated with animals. At other times, they feature city streets and interesting facades.
While the imagery has not altered significantly, the materials and methods have changed. After working in soft pastels for the many years, I am painting with oils again. The results have been satisfying and I expect that for the next decade or so I will continue to actively pursue both media. The scale of the work varies from small and intimate to quite large.
My painting style is representational. I pay a great deal of attention to the compositional and value elements in a given work. No matter the image in a piece, my working method is essentially the same. Using photographs and sketches done on site or during a modeling session, I lay out in thumbnail an idea with a very rough notion of the compositional elements. Once I’m satisfied that I have an idea worth pursuing, I begin the work.
As a painter, I am continually fascinated by the properties of color, light and shadow as they affect both the image and my own sense of time, place and inner harmony. While this fascination has to do with both the visual elements and my own emotional needs as an artist, the paintings, once they are done, either stand or fall on their own.
I hope you like them.
“As a painter, I am continually fascinated by the properties of color, light and shadow as they affect both the image and my own sense of time, place and inner harmony.”
— Helen Vaughn