Shelter in The Trees III

The Shelter series has been developed from drawings I made from life in my garden from mid-February to mid-May 2022. I drew every day for 100 days in ink in a sketchbook. The summer of 2022 was very wet due to a second La Nina in the Pacific Ocean. I had to shelter most days on our back veranda or under a beach umbrella. I would sit low to the ground so that the paper didn't get splashed, I'm sure I looked like a life-sized artistic garden gnome.

I have loved the large flowering eucalypts since we arrived here. When my daughter was in grade 2 at Samford State School I volunteered to help with the ANZAC day wreaths. My mother was very keen on flower arranging and made floral displays ar her local church and hospital most weeks for decades. When I arrived at school for wreath making the kids had brought in random cuttings from their gardens which I had to arrange into wreaths to lay at the school ANZAC assembly in the school hall. One child had brought in a sprig of the bright pink flowering eucalypt, known as summer red eucalyptus. It was the strangest flower I had ever seen, they look like sea urchins and are wildly over the top. I love them and when we started our garden we bought some tube stock. Our garden is extremely finicky. Some things grow others refuse. My eucalyptus did grow and flowers occasionally. The flowers are now high in the branches.

When I was drawing the garden I looked up one day into the canopy of the eucalypt. I was hoping for flowers. There were buds and gum nuts and elegant leaves. They all made brilliant negative space. This is my third mini-series based on my drawings of the tree.

I was exploring texture and colour in this piece and trying to keep the greens I love, off my palette. The eucalyptus leaves on this tree are orange and red when new, peach when on the ground and have red stalks.

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Helen has been a practising artist since completing an MA in Textiles at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is a full-time artist and tutor, working and teaching from her purpose-built studio set on 9 rural acres in Cedar Creek, northside of Brisbane.She lived and worked in Bermuda for many years before settling in SE Queensland. Her work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in the USA, Canada, The Caribbean, the UK, Bermuda, Europe, Russia and Australia, it can be found in private, corporate and public collections.

Helen's art is bursting with exuberant colour and texture realised in acrylic on board.Her work begins with observational drawings on location developed into lushly layered paintings in the studio. Her work explores genius loci, seeking to find echoes and connections to other places and spaces. Her love of landscape and gardens nurtures ancestral connection and is a central theme of her practice. Her textile training is evident in the marks, pattern, texture and colour of her work.

She completed a year-long artist-in-residence at a local flower farm in May 2024. Her time at the farm produced a major body of work of plein air landscapes and botnical studio paintings. She spent the year drawing and painting on location. Her drawings were developed into richly textured paintings in the studio.

Helen's practice is realised in acrylic on ply. The majority of her work is finished with 3 coats of gloss medium. This enhances the complex layers of paint and colour in the work. If you would like a stain finish please message Helen and she can apply a soft wax to render a satin finish.