Helen Blair

www.ArtPal.com/helenblair

I’ve been painting for over 25 years while bringing up my family of 5 children. They are all grown up now which allows me to paint full time. While bringing up my family I tended to paint quickly as I had limited time, that’s how I developed my expressionist way of painting, I practiced ways of using the pallet knife and found I loved the freedom it gave me, sometimes I will spend more time on something, adding many layers. I like to paint vibrant colours and deep rich contrasts with a combination of brush work and painting Knife, creating textural impressionist colour tapestries and strong contrasting works imbued with light and energy.

Ive always loved the outdoors, growing up in the country on a dairy farm and doing lots of great walks throughout New Zealand. My ideal holiday is to go tramping and to take my paints with me, I love to paint enpleinair wherever I can. I also love gardening, pottery, music and animals, especially my cats, we have 7 at the moment.

Some of my work is directly inspired by my environment, while other pieces depict my travels and outdoor work. My studio is in an off grid barn on a mountain meadow below Leaning Rock mountain, it is so beautiful here, theres so much variety and change in the seasons.

My Art Style

I love Colour! impasto and to paint loose, strong contrasting works imbued with light and energy. I love to use painting knifes which has a textural impasto paint style and loose brush work to soften areas, revealing layers of subtle colour underneath, sometimes building up many layers, this gives my paintings a blended and sharp effect, and a sense of movement which reflects more light.