This is me!

This is me! Autumn is my favourite season. I love the rich colours. I'm trying to slow the year down, to take the time to be outside, to collect conkers and leaves and bring nature back to the studio.

New in my shop!

Here are some of my new prints now available in my online shop at www.helenhallows.com They are limited edition giclee prints and are printed in a run of 100. Backed by the Fine Art Trade Guild the inks are guaranteed and the paper is of the highest quality. My amazing printer has a fantastic eye for colour and detail meaning he is able to capture all the richness and texture of the original artwork. The first time he handed me a print, I thought it was the original!

Garden Angel

Full Bloom

On the Move

Radiant Light

Faded Summer

Tree of Life

Happy Autumn

Celebrating the seasons has occupied the human spirit for millennia. In these fast paced days and artificially lit nights, I feel grounded when I go outside, observe what is happening around me and acknowledge the wonderment of nature. The simple gifts I collect, a fallen leaf, the fruits of my allotment and garden all bring me into the here and now. It is on these forays into nature that my mind is at peace and ideas for my creative work evolve.

Tools of my trade

I'm getting ready for a series of collage workshops. The tools of my trade are varied! I use marks to create different papers to collage with and use a variety of inks and paints. I make my own mark making tools as well as having a good collection of found objects. I use different printmaking techniques and make my own printing blocks. On the workshops I share these techniques and show how to use the different papers to tell a story, the story of your creative soul.

Melbourne Festival 2015

The annual event that is the Melbourne Festival is a sight to behold! The village of Melbourne, Derbyshire is kidnapped by artists and makers who fill every available space. Home owners are held to ransom and give up their conservatories, and dining rooms as exhibition space. Shop windows and shops are filled with art and gardens are turned into sculpture venues. By magic the sun is made to shine and for forty eight hours visitors come from far and wide to buy beautiful jewellery, ceramics and art.  

The flow of life is ever onward

So it is October (already!) and we are betwixt and between seasons. It has been a fine September of misty mornings and sunny afternoons and I've been absorbing the sun's rays as much as possible. I suffer from seasonal adjustment disorder and so it is a bitter sweet time of year. I love the sense of change of autumn. I love the sense of letting go. I love the rhythm of the days that equal the nights and the sense of sunrise and sunset that keeps a gentle beat to life. But in there I feel the retraction of the sun, the shift to cloudier days, nights drawing in. And so I try to find solace in capturing the memories of late summer, of capturing the sun in my work as a talisman to use on darker days to ward off the dragging greyness that winter can bring. I use the sun in my work to keep a light burning in my soul.

Radiant Light -visit my shop at www.helenhallows.com

And it is that sense of capturing the sun, the autumn trees, the intense palette of reds, yellows and ochres that will inspire my next workshops, 'Shine Like the Sun' on Saturday October 10th in Long Eaton and 'Grow Your Own Art' on Saturday 17th October at Focus Gallery in Nottingham. Using multi media techniques with paint, inks and collage, students will create a collaged block, inspired by the season.