Clean up time

We had another great day on Monday - the monthly 'Creative Me' workshop day, I'm always amazed at the artwork that people produce in just one day.
This class included three absolute beginners, you can see their progress below. 

Thank you all for sharing your creativity and day with me x

So - a bit of clearing up for me today - this is the 'before' picture of my studio........

Creative Me workshop photos

Thank you to the lovely artists who shared their creative journeys with me today.

I'm amazed by your creations and impressed with your stamina.  I'm exhausted now, but somehow  finding the energy to finish the cake and have a glass of wine!

We start the day with a clean - erm, everything!

the blank canvases don't last long, within a few minutes the first layer is on and drying, and  we are looking  light heartedly  at colour theory & how not to make mud!

that's the way to do it!

already developing their voices - and yes that is a puppy!

and while we work... Bo has a nap!

 'Thank you for today Helen, I enjoyed learning new ways to apply and layer paint colour - the information about colour, use of the colour wheel and how to create contrast' CE

'The workshop ...gave me more confidence to paint on my own' LE


Link to workshop info - we hold our 'Creative Me' day long workshops once a month. For more info please follow the link.

Loving Autumn

Autumn's arrived here in wild West Wales and it's beautiful. Clear crisp mornings on the beach with the pups, me wrapped in scarves and jumpers, then home to squeeze out the jazzy autumn colours onto my palette and begin!
Happy to be back home. There's no place like it.

To the beach!

hello sunshine!

yes, it's back, after a deluge.

It's Saturday, 5.30, work done for today time to take this sad little pup to the beach for a run.

Promise more asap -busy living the life and being grateful.

xxxxxxxxxxHelenxxxxxxxxx

Cardigan Bay Seafood Festival

Hello my sweeties,
another week flown by, and it's nearly time for the Aberaeron Sea Food Festival - this Sunday, so we've been busy preparing lots of pictures for it, including a few new originals.....

Last year's stand - ready to go

 These are pictures from last year - and yes the forecast was also for rain - but as you'll see, Aberaeron has it's own micro climate and did very well in the sunshine... so there you are, you know where to head on Sunday for the Sun!


A big thanks to all who organise and clean up afterwards - you are a great team xxx

Thanks especially to Menna & Glyn at the Harbour Master Hotel, who devised the initial Fish Festival and continue to work hard for the event. Diolch xx (oh, and have some lovely artwork in their lovely hotel... ahem.. ;-)

end of the day...

Temptation!

SEE YOU THERE ....

(apart from Florence and her Mum & Dad ...next year she'll be in the picture too xxx)

Is there anything better....

Hello

really, honestly, truly, being an artist is there anything better than completing a painting that makes your whole being HAPPY,  feel JOYFUL and want to look, look, look at it again and again, drinking in the - what? the LOVE of it?

Well,  here we are - my painting I finished today. I say 'my' painting because I have also been working 12 hour days finishing a series of paintings of  Norfolk for an exhibition at The Red Lobster Gallery in Sheringham, which will be sent on Monday to them.

So whist painting for them, for sanity's sake, I've also been painting for me, here it is:

Ahhhh, now for a largish glass of Primitvo, grilled courgette and cashew nut salad, and relax......

thanks for reading,

Helen

Creative Me

Some very exciting news ..... finalised plans at our monthly business meeting (see picture...) for a series of 'Create Me' workshops, to be held at my home studio over throughout 2012.

Full details will be released when our new web site goes live - but in the meantime - if you really, really can't wait, message me and I will send you a sneak preview ....

Jasmine perfume, orange and blue

Hello lovely people

today I have been having some fun.

It's so cold and rainy here in West Wales, I turned up the music (Buddha Bar); selected some favourite paints and inks - lime green, process magenta, golden yellow, prussian blue; process cyan; relaxed my shoulders, breathed in the Jasime perfume and began to randomly made marks.

 Two lovely girls - Lauren & Zoe - visited the studio with their parents, they finger painted on some 10 x 10 cm canvases, and scratched designs into them. These I then used to 'potato print' onto a 60 x 60cm canvas, followed by some loose drawing - randomly with pen and florescent marker - then colouring in - mostly with just fingers - sometimes with a credit card ...




Whilst I was doing this I closed my eyes to listen to the music and had the most incredible feeling and sensation of COLOUR in my heart, throat and head - amazing orange and yellows edged with a blue, the intensity of  the blue I can't describe - yet alone paint...I've been trying to recreate that colour all afternoon! wow, what a feeling. I want that again - any other artists have this?

So this is as far as I have got today with my colouring in - and tomorrow I am taking puppy dog to training lessons (more for me than him, I admit it!)

Hope it's not to long before we get another rainy day, and I can have some more fun & get this one finished.

oh... the Jasmine perfume ...I have run out ...and L'occitaine have stopped producing it. Hmmm

Spring Clean

old office room

MASSSSIVE spring clean underway - had to be done, but so far it's taken 3 of us 2 days, and another day will be needed to find lost things and go to the recycling depot.

We were squashed in a room with the printer, framing bits & bobs, mount cutters etc...


...but now we have a lovely room with a garden view, space for two dog beds and a 'meeting table'..... for some reason I'm thrilled by the prospect of having meetings at a 'meeting table' ... why I don't kno.

Pictures to Poland

Three canvases packed and sent on their way to Poland for the International Festival of Naive Art in Katowice. Now to count my air miles to see if I can join them!

A good start

A good start this week on the pictures for a solo exhibition in Norfolk in July at the Red Lobster Gallery, Sheringham. Still looking for a title but the theme is definitely seaside with a smattering of windmills, poppies and hares. Here are a few pages from my sketchbook , and the start of a large 'beach hut' painting. Nice to be thinking about sunny summer weather whilst listening to a chilly downpour!

Cardigan Corn Exchange Gallery

Here we are another lovely sunny day in West Wales. This week I am showing paintings with my friend Diane Mathias - www.dianemathias.com. We have just realised that we have been holding joint exhibitions in this gallery for ten years - ten years! And it's all been fun..... Thanks Diane and here's to the next ten!

Opal Fruits

Still totally in love with my 'opal fruits' colour scheme - these three little cuties are off tomorrow to NT Colby Gardens shop, to start the Pembrokeshire Craft Makers season off to a colourful start.

Finally - paintings arrive safely in Paris - *sigh of relief*

Some of the paintings for Paris - and my two models

My paintings have now been safely delivered to  the Musee d’art Naïf in Paris. Preparation and painting for the exhibition has taken over 18 months. The exhibition previews on 24th March 2012. 

‘I was immensely pleased to have been asked by France’s International Museum of Naïve Art to hold a solo show with them; it’s a huge compliment and confirmation for me and my work. When I began painting in my naïve style, 21 years ago, it was very much considered ‘outsider art’ in the UK.  It was hard to find any 'naive' art the UK, let alone in Wales.  I sold from a few  smaller galleries, and with the help of some great collectors and gradually my career grew. I just kept on painting in this style, as it felt right to me and I just love using colour, and painting scenes that make me smile; in essence I like colouring in!’

My career in the art world was not always so glamorous.  Aged just seven I knew I wanted to be an artist, after winning a ‘keep your teeth clean’ poster competion for under 8’s. However, six weeks into  an Art O level I was taken aside by my art teacher who explained that I would never make an artist as I couldn’t draw.  This only put me off for 10 years....  

...but it was the best thing that could have happened - as I pursued another interesting career, but kept on painting, gradually defining my work;  teaching myself as I went along; painting what and how I liked. I had no one molding me or teaching me the ‘right’ way. Hence my very unique style developed.

Naïve Art is now well established in the UK. But it has a longer hertitage in Europe – it’s roots come from Eastern Europe and it has been bought by serious collectors in France for many years. I began exhibiting with French Naïve Art groups in 2002; and later joined FIVAN, a European group of Naïve artists, where for the last three years i've has been the only painter to represent the UK at their international exhibitions. This year, after the Paris exhibition I will be showing with the FIVAN group at the Szeb Wilson Gallery in Katowice, Poland, as well as joint and solo shows throughout the UK.

The exhibition previews 24th March 2012 and continues until the end of May. Entry is free.

Details from the Musee d'art Naif (MIDAN) at  www.midan.org

Spring colours

Three new pictures currently on my easels- inspired by spring colours in this beautiful corner of our world

Almost, nearly, spring is in the air

Today, here in west Wales, its been that long awaited preview of 'spring to come' day. The birds are singing, the first daffs are out, the doors been open and I've even done a little clearing in the garden.
Interestingly - well to me at least - a sudden change yesterday in my colour palette. Spring - almost - at last and an unconscious internal shift. All at once I couldn't stand the oranges, lime and plum I've been obsessing over the last 6 months. In their place pink, turquoise and lime. Even painted over a picture that I have been working on since September :

Graham Sutherland Gallery to show Wales Coast Path series

Thanks to the lovely folks at Picton Castle's gallery for inviting me to hold a solo show throughout August.
My Wales Coast Path series of paintings will preview in their large gallery July 30th 2012.

Nice one Judy

A recent visit to Cornwall and we popped in to see Judy Joel at her Gallery - 'The Little Picture Gallery' in Mousehole. It was lovely & full of some great Naive Art.
Judy is truly inspiratinal, as well as painting and running her gallery she also co-chairs the Association of British Naive Artists (ABNA) and has developed the group from about 6 artists 8 years ago to it's current membership of well over 30. She has worked hard to promote Naive Art in Britain, and it is in no small way due to her that Naive Art is today so popular in the UK and is exhibited and collected by serious collectors and galleries.

Nice one Judy!

Happy New Year

Hello everyone - well we are off to a flying start here in wet West Wales - a week long exhibition now on at the Corn Exchange in Cardigan and a whole slew of paintings queueing to get out out my head and onto canvas.

Right now I'm particularly inspired by Barbara Hepworth's studio and garden as well as the Brittany coast - so 3 canvases are primed ready to go with these subjects.

Yesterday was my first proper working day back in the studio (couldn't wait) - a good tidy up, and finishing off Castellane picture - that took me over a year and a half To complete - the final details and colours were just not jelling until now. Phew..... Maybe it's the muse or maybe the thought of needing 15 pictures for Paris before March.....
OK - large mug of green tea ready, brushes ready, paint at hand- Cornwall and Brittany here we come!

Excitement building here at the House of Elliott. We have exactly 120 days before the launch of a new series of paintings 'The Welsh Coast Path' to celebrate, what else - but the opening of the Welsh Coast Path. Watch this space for news and previews.