PineShoreStudio/Paintings by Helen Harris

 I finally have an answer for the person who tells me that I am so talented but they can't even draw a straight line or a stick figure. Some may think I'm being funny, glib or maybe even offensive but here is my reply: "If you place a dot, which is really nothing more than a mark on a surface and then place another dot right next to it, you have the beginning of a line. If you then continue this pattern turning the line until it meets the other end you have a shape."  You see, I do not think it is the act of using these elements that is stopping anyone from becoming an artist but rather the confidence and self permission to allow themselves the time to play with something so silly as the dot, line and shape. After all isn't that what children do as they gleefully attack a cup full of crayons and paper? Creativity is child's play! Add some color and a squiggle.....ta da!  Lol... could it really be this simple? In essence, YES!  Where you go from here ...

I have just finished 6 months of showing up every day in my studio to work on paintings and sketches to fulfill a commitment to exhibit at a library in March.  Nineteen paintings and a sketchbook have been finished. I constructed my framing, prepared the labels, the paperwork and packing are complete. My focus each day was to reach this goal. What next ? Lol ..this isn't unusual. This is a real situation that many artists face that can result in joy or sadness. It can catapult you forward into a new body of work or spiral into an artist block. It can be a moment of relaxation or the start of an anxiety attack. Is it a confidence builder or does that insidious doubt creep in? I ask myself "What's Next?" Learning to cope with this pivotal moment is as important and fundamental to you as an artist as knowing your shape,values and color. It is also an answer that only you can provide. For me, at this time of my life, forming a daily habit as simple as taking my morni...

Last week I traveled back in time to the beginnings of my painting journey. Today walk with me along the next part of this path to my present day. The next steps took me into my acrylic studies. Wow! What a difference in handling this medium. Totally different from watercolors. A brush stroke had body and stayed where my markings landed on the surface. I could work over areas of color or form, radically changing them leaving the underpainting undisturbed...and I felt like an amateur again! I had gotten away from my drawing skills. I was forming shapes with papers and colors were used abstractly, not to inform atmosphere, perspective or image. I missed my landscapes. Two years later, I had a handle on it... but something was missing. I felt a lack of connection to the land. A road trip ensued! Cross country in a wild ride through 23 states, me riding shotgun, taking it all in, mountains to sea, farmland to towns...and the paintings changed again. I thought all was right in my worl...

When I began painting I chose watercolor. I was fascinated by the movement of the colors as they traveled across my paper. After years of study in a more formalized graphic design program,the freedom of water color was exciting. I found the subtle blends of color and the unusual tendrils of forms which gave me the creative push that I needed to move on in my work. I loved to work directly with no set plan. Pale and timid to begin, I found my balance about two years later. That's my learning curve. Each time I've ventured into another medium that ah-ha moment came after two years. I loved landscape but felt a need to explore textures. .   Mixed media  came into my creative realm. My watercolors combined with torn papers rice papers and papyrus, all preserved with gel medium and abstracts! I found my sweet spot...until I found a need to explore three dimensional work! I was still searching. Continuing on my journey I delved into my mixed media of gels and now acrylics! ...

I recently returned to sketching every day. I was spurred on by a youtube video by   #AndrewTischler . He encouraged this in his project called  #sketchendeavor.  I hadn't done this in years. I also stumbled across a sketchbook that actually suited my way of working.  Being a lefty, I got tired of turning books upside down and working away from spiral bindings. I found that Arteza has a great little watercolor sketchbook that opens flat offering a panoramic option that has both a rough and smooth surface for both dry & wet media. I made sketching a habit once again by incorporating my sketching into a time that I knew I'd be consistent in picking up a pencil and pad. The time was while watching some TV in the evening. As a landscapist, I certainly was not outside at this time sketching, instead I was drawing landscapes from memory. I have a vocabulary of images of trees, rocks, streams, mountains, fields etc. gathered in my mind over years of observation. T...