Wednesday, 7 September 2016
Workshop dates 2016-2017
Here are my new workshop dates of the coming academic year. You can find all details on my website at www.helenhallows.com or click here.
Back to School Week
It's back to school week here in Derbyshire which means one thing.....it's the Wirksworth Festival at the weekend! In Derbyshire we are good at making the summer last and this year I will be exhibiting at both the Wirksworth and the Melbourne Festivals.
I've had a good break over the summer (more to tell of that in other posts) and now the boys are back at school I am getting my wares ready for the weekend. There'll be special festival prices on prints and originals so come and see me at the Wild Cherry Bed and Breakfast up the very steep Greenhill. It's worth the walk as I will be exhibiting alongside Tracy Cuppitt and our host is a cafe stop for festival visitors. From up there the views are amazing, not too dissimilar to this....
I've had a good break over the summer (more to tell of that in other posts) and now the boys are back at school I am getting my wares ready for the weekend. There'll be special festival prices on prints and originals so come and see me at the Wild Cherry Bed and Breakfast up the very steep Greenhill. It's worth the walk as I will be exhibiting alongside Tracy Cuppitt and our host is a cafe stop for festival visitors. From up there the views are amazing, not too dissimilar to this....
Then it's a quick pitstop at home before the Melbourne Festival Art Trail on the 17th and 18th of September where I will be at 49 Church Street. Don't forget to buy your trail guide from one of the sellers in the village centre. Fingers crossed that the sun keeps shining!
I look forward to seeing you!
Thursday, 21 April 2016
Memory Lane
When I turned forty I felt a need to understand myself. I felt the need to look back, to ask questions and to find the pieces of me. Last year I read a book called 'The Rescue Man' by Anthony Quinn. It was a book I wouldn't have usually chosen for myself ( I read it with my book group). I found myself transported to Liverpool in two tales that intertwine. My own tale begins in Liverpool, the city of my birth, though I moved away when my parents moved south when I was two. So I have only abstract memories of the place I was born and no solid connections there now that my grandparents have passed away. And yet in reading of Liverpool in the 'Rescue Man', I felt a yearning to visit the place that I had been born to. So at Easter we had a family break there and I walked in the footsteps of my parents and grandparents.
I have asked myself what relevance this trip has had to me and to my work. And it turns out to be about time. I stand at the midpoint of my life, and in journeying alongside my children, I have looked back to my own roots and formative years. I've realised that life speeds up and that time slips away, memories are not solid and my life is not even a blink of an eye in the history of humanity. Somewhere along my journey, I discovered what I am good at and what I love to do. I became 'me'. In choosing to make art (or art choosing to make me) I decided to try to stop time. I decided to stop, to look, to listen and to create something tangible out of the transience of life. My landscape art is about connecting to the earth on which we all stand. It is about capturing a moment. I want others to stop and notice.
Although my work is rooted in nature, I love to travel to cities. I find them stimulating in their architecture, culture and colour. I love art galleries and quirky shops, world food and independent cinemas. Liverpool has them all.
In Liverpool, I found a part of my jigsaw that was missing. I felt very at home. I found the people to be warm and friendly with a sense of humour I recognise in my family. It is a vibrant city that is rich in history and culture. I felt that Liverpool is on her own journey and there is much there to notice.
The house my parents built in Liverpool
Mersey Avenue
I have asked myself what relevance this trip has had to me and to my work. And it turns out to be about time. I stand at the midpoint of my life, and in journeying alongside my children, I have looked back to my own roots and formative years. I've realised that life speeds up and that time slips away, memories are not solid and my life is not even a blink of an eye in the history of humanity. Somewhere along my journey, I discovered what I am good at and what I love to do. I became 'me'. In choosing to make art (or art choosing to make me) I decided to try to stop time. I decided to stop, to look, to listen and to create something tangible out of the transience of life. My landscape art is about connecting to the earth on which we all stand. It is about capturing a moment. I want others to stop and notice.
Although my work is rooted in nature, I love to travel to cities. I find them stimulating in their architecture, culture and colour. I love art galleries and quirky shops, world food and independent cinemas. Liverpool has them all.
In Liverpool, I found a part of my jigsaw that was missing. I felt very at home. I found the people to be warm and friendly with a sense of humour I recognise in my family. It is a vibrant city that is rich in history and culture. I felt that Liverpool is on her own journey and there is much there to notice.
Wednesday, 20 April 2016
Featured Maker at Folksy.com
This week it's my great honour to be Featured Maker at Folksy.com and to celebrate I'm offering a discount of 20% off all sales in my Folksy store. I've got some new products too, including this Notebook Set and a set of Landscape Art Cards. There are new prints in the range too so please stop by for a look. To get the discount you'll need code Springsong16.
Me! Click the photo!
Spring notebook set
Sketch. Write. Create.
Landscape Card Set
Towards Dawn
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
In waiting
There's a stillness just before Spring bursts forth, and that is where I am, in that stillness. I'm waiting with the trees to put on a fandango of colour! As the days have drawn out I've enjoyed a couple of trips out...to Lincoln and to Oakham to visit galleries (find me at Itch Gallery in Oakham) and to seek out the new.
As I have crossed the landscape I have been inspired by the bare trees, layered up. Some conceal what is behind them. Some cast shadows. Some play with the light and create a dance of negative and positive shapes. It has been a fruitful time creatively and I have felt at peace with my creativity.
My bid to give up plastic for lent has led me down some new paths too. I've been enjoying home-made bread and home-made yoghurt. Shopping has become a different experience and I've sought out interesting farm shops and markets. I've also had a deeper appreciation for the handmade and hand mended. It's important to me to create art that is made from the heart with processes that tread lightly on the earth.
But now I'm looking forward to the growth, the colour and the energy that comes with the longer days. I'm looking forward to being outside soaking it all up. I'll be sharing time in nature and my creative techniques and response to nature on my Summer Sketchbook workshop on Saturday May 21st in Long Eaton. And in July there's my Back to Nature art holiday when you can join me for three idyllic days in the hills! And I've a Mark Making studio day on Saturday June 25th. I hope you can join me!
Over Easter I'm looking forward to getting my seeds planted. I have been shirking my responsibilities on the allotment but already Mr Hallows has some lettuces popping up in the polytunnel. I hope we get some warm days and to be able to get out on some new adventures. I'm taking part in 100 Happy Days to bring my attention to the small, joyful details of my life. There are many but I need reminding to stop, to look, to appreciate. You can follow my #100happydays on Instagram or Facebook where I'm also having a give way!
Visit, and like, my Facebook page to enter the giveaway.
Tuesday, 23 February 2016
Sunshine and Showers
So Spring is teasing me with sunshine and showers. I can smell the hope in the air and I'm filled with a sense of purpose. The reflective time of winter has fuelled new ideas and I've been scribbling them down in the hope they will come to fruition this coming year.
My creative flow is amazingly balanced at the moment. I find that to be true in Spring and Autumn. They are my favourite seasons because of that balance between night and day, light and dark. I work best then. In the summer I tend to be a bit skittish and high energy and in the winter I feel like someone has switched off all the lights and find it hard to get things done. So the pace just now is just right. I've been enjoying planning my gardening year too. Last year I didn't grow much but found I felt disconnected from nature. This year I have already had my fingers in the soil and planted lettuces and beans in our polytunnel. I'm determined to preserve as much of our crops as possible. I've been challenged by a friend to give up buying plastic for Lent. It has meant a journey of self-discovery and a hunter-gatherer style of shopping as I skit between farm shops, markets and super-markets trying to find unpacked or paper packed goods. It has given me a new drive toward being more self sufficient. This week that has meant making marmalade and pickling onions. You can find my favourite recipes here. There's something wonderful about stacking up jars of coloured produce in the Spring sunshine.
Connecting with nature is fuelling my workshops too. I had such a wonderful day with my students on both the 'Rest with Nature' workshop and 'Spring Sketchbooks'. There was a real sense of enjoyment of process and having time to experiment and try new things. That's what art is all about isn't it?
If you'd like to join me for a workshop, I'll be running a 'Summer Sketchbooks' day on Saturday May 21st and a mixed-media 'Mark Making' day on Saturday June 25th. And don't forget that I'll be running my 'Back to Nature' Art Holiday in July. It'll be a total immersion in beauty and art - a wonderful treat for your creative soul.
Amongst the planning for workshops I'm creating a new series of landscapes. I'm currently exhibiting at the Ferrers Gallery and will be demonstrating my techniques and giving a taster of my workshops on Sunday 6th March between 12 and 3. Come along and say 'hi'!
My creative flow is amazingly balanced at the moment. I find that to be true in Spring and Autumn. They are my favourite seasons because of that balance between night and day, light and dark. I work best then. In the summer I tend to be a bit skittish and high energy and in the winter I feel like someone has switched off all the lights and find it hard to get things done. So the pace just now is just right. I've been enjoying planning my gardening year too. Last year I didn't grow much but found I felt disconnected from nature. This year I have already had my fingers in the soil and planted lettuces and beans in our polytunnel. I'm determined to preserve as much of our crops as possible. I've been challenged by a friend to give up buying plastic for Lent. It has meant a journey of self-discovery and a hunter-gatherer style of shopping as I skit between farm shops, markets and super-markets trying to find unpacked or paper packed goods. It has given me a new drive toward being more self sufficient. This week that has meant making marmalade and pickling onions. You can find my favourite recipes here. There's something wonderful about stacking up jars of coloured produce in the Spring sunshine.
Connecting with nature is fuelling my workshops too. I had such a wonderful day with my students on both the 'Rest with Nature' workshop and 'Spring Sketchbooks'. There was a real sense of enjoyment of process and having time to experiment and try new things. That's what art is all about isn't it?
If you'd like to join me for a workshop, I'll be running a 'Summer Sketchbooks' day on Saturday May 21st and a mixed-media 'Mark Making' day on Saturday June 25th. And don't forget that I'll be running my 'Back to Nature' Art Holiday in July. It'll be a total immersion in beauty and art - a wonderful treat for your creative soul.
Amongst the planning for workshops I'm creating a new series of landscapes. I'm currently exhibiting at the Ferrers Gallery and will be demonstrating my techniques and giving a taster of my workshops on Sunday 6th March between 12 and 3. Come along and say 'hi'!
Tuesday, 5 January 2016
Believe!
Happy New Year!
I've been enjoying hibernating and reflecting on 2015. It wasn't an easy year for me and I've been looking forward to starting over with a new plan for 2016. I've been working through some online courses and books on creativity ahead of this year's workshops. On my workshop, 'Rest with Nature' on January 23rd, we will be taking some time for creative reflection so I though I would do some of my own.
Over Christmas I read Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Big Magic' which is a great reminder of the wonder of creativity and to tap in to the joy of it. It's got good advice for moving forward with your creative work and for riding out creative block. It linked in well with another book I read not long ago called 'Playing Big' by Tara Mohr which deals with how we can often hold ourselves back. In that, there are some exercise for helping yourself to move forward. When I worked through these, the mantra 'Believe in Yourself' kept coming to me. I will be using that as my affirmation for 2016.
Coming in to this year, I worked through Susanne Conway's 'Find Your Word' online course to find out where I should focus my energy this year. I came up with the word 'Believe'. I usually choose a word for the year and in the past few years they have been passive. 'Acceptance' is one that has popped up, usually about accepting my dual responsibilities of work and family. This year feels like a move forward. My word is more active and hopeful. It's about believing in myself and the roles I juggle and also about believing in my creativity and being present - filling my creative well and feeding my soul. And its about believing in the future and working towards some new goals. I'm going to take the time to write as I find that I connect to myself and my creativity when I write and I'm going to take some time away from home to get lost and find new places.
And as I reflect on the word 'Believe', I keep coming to the words, 'Leave Be'. I'm reminded of the prayer:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
And so I am going to try to worry less, to stop battling with life and to be less hard on myself and to let it be.
Whatever you have planned for the new year, may 2016 be creative and fulfilling. x
I've been enjoying hibernating and reflecting on 2015. It wasn't an easy year for me and I've been looking forward to starting over with a new plan for 2016. I've been working through some online courses and books on creativity ahead of this year's workshops. On my workshop, 'Rest with Nature' on January 23rd, we will be taking some time for creative reflection so I though I would do some of my own.
Over Christmas I read Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Big Magic' which is a great reminder of the wonder of creativity and to tap in to the joy of it. It's got good advice for moving forward with your creative work and for riding out creative block. It linked in well with another book I read not long ago called 'Playing Big' by Tara Mohr which deals with how we can often hold ourselves back. In that, there are some exercise for helping yourself to move forward. When I worked through these, the mantra 'Believe in Yourself' kept coming to me. I will be using that as my affirmation for 2016.
Coming in to this year, I worked through Susanne Conway's 'Find Your Word' online course to find out where I should focus my energy this year. I came up with the word 'Believe'. I usually choose a word for the year and in the past few years they have been passive. 'Acceptance' is one that has popped up, usually about accepting my dual responsibilities of work and family. This year feels like a move forward. My word is more active and hopeful. It's about believing in myself and the roles I juggle and also about believing in my creativity and being present - filling my creative well and feeding my soul. And its about believing in the future and working towards some new goals. I'm going to take the time to write as I find that I connect to myself and my creativity when I write and I'm going to take some time away from home to get lost and find new places.
And as I reflect on the word 'Believe', I keep coming to the words, 'Leave Be'. I'm reminded of the prayer:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
And so I am going to try to worry less, to stop battling with life and to be less hard on myself and to let it be.
Whatever you have planned for the new year, may 2016 be creative and fulfilling. x
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