Moonlit Studio Mornings, Bold Flowers and the Pembrokeshire Coast

Some mornings arrive with a fanfare. Others arrive by moonlight, with a few candles in the studio and the delicious feeling that the seasons are turning. I know which sort I prefer.

This week I’m inviting you into my West Wales workshop for a look at the rather wonderful machinery behind the art. Our fine art printer is seventeen years old and still part of the story, alongside the standards behind our Fine Art Trade Guild accreditation. Not glamorous in a red-carpet sort of way. Important, though: how a painting becomes a fine art print matters.

Back at the easel, the flowers are getting ideas above their station. I’m working towards a collection of bold floral paintings, but I don’t really think of flowers as polite little arrangements. They’re abstract designs full of movement, shape and glorious colour. Values — those relationships between light and dark — do a great deal of the work in these compositions as they guide your eye around.

And then there’s autumn in Pembrokeshire: Nevern, ancient bleeding yew trees, Norman ruins and the rugged cliffs at Ceibwr Bay. Sketching outdoors isn’t just about bringing home a nice drawing. It’s about building muscle memory: marks, shapes and sensations to carry into winter paintings long after the walk is over.

A little moonlight, a little printing history, some coastal composition and flowers that refuse to behave. Just another week in the studio, then.

see the paintsings www.helenelliott.net

TRANSCRIPT Early mornings by moonlight & studio candlelight

I've been getting up this week and the moon has been so bright, it's almost been like daylight. But what a delight it is to go into the studio and light a candle first thing.

What a pleasure it is having these candles all around. In the studio here, I've been working on a series of paintings. So, I have a particular palette of colors out that I've chosen for this series. I'm working on some floral ones at the moment and I will show you those shortly.

It's a week of doing things in the workshop. So, printing, fixing, and I want to introduce you to this, my lovely printer, 17 years old.

In the print workshop: our 17-year-old printer & Fine Art Trade Guild standards

Still going strong. Keep it going. We made a business decision many years ago and we started producing prints that we would produce our own after so many experiences of ones that weren't quite good enough. Colors didn't quite match the you know just wasn't giving the depth of color that I wanted or the quality. So we invested in this big printer. Then digital print really took off and Epsom has always been state-of-the-art with um for professional printing at that time as well. We decided that we'd really invest not only time but knowledge and money into printing. So we undertook to get qualified with the fine art trade guild.

23rd of February 2011.

So quite a while ago now. So that meant we had to send off some of our prints and they had to be assessed for quality of print quality, longevity and that the materials that were used. And this is still the printer. And these are still the standards that we print to today.

Beach walk masterclass: how high vs. low horizon lines shape a painting

After a week in the print room framing and making prints, I'm back to the beach. And this week I've been looking at horizon lines because when I'm teaching online I'm teaching about design this week to the students and I teach about horizon lines and this is what they call a high horizon line. It suggests expansiveness and space.

Conversely, this is a very low horizon line and it gives a sense of drama to the painting. The clouds take prominence. It makes your eyes look upwards

Studio teaching: color values, contrast & leading the viewer's eye

I find it very interesting to analyze paintings in terms of design.

And this next one is the horizon line in the center. This is what they say you shouldn't do in a painting. But of course, rules are only there to be explored, shall we say.

Back in the studio and I'll show you a few things that are on the easel.

New floral collection: why I love the energy & "ballsiness" of flower painting

This one will be used to demonstrate the difference between an analogous color scheme and a triadic color scheme.

But I've also taken a black and white shot of this to

demonstrate color values because that is so important in a painting. Getting the values right means that you can lead the viewer's eye around the painting. So, it's very important to establish color values as part of the design when you're planning a painting.

Also, in the studio, not as part of my teaching, but just for myself, I've been working on a collection of floral paintings that are actually going to be released on the 5th of November.

I adore flower paintings.

Not because they are soft or approachable, but I always think of them

as abstract paintings. It's an opportunity to really explore abstract painting in terms of line and design and

color and placement. But I also just like the sheer absolute ballsiness of flowers and the energy and the life in

them. That was what keeps drawing me back to them and that's why I love painting them. Very much looking forward to getting this collection live online.

Chapter 6: Exploring Nevern, Pembrokeshire: Norman castle ruins & ancient bleeding yews. Sketching at Ceibwr Bay: why sketches are for muscle memory, not blueprints

little bit of tree hugging to start with. I'm in Nevern which is in Pemrokeshire, an ancient place. There's actually a Norman castle there. Beautiful, beautiful woodlands and also it's home of the bleeding

yews in the churchyard which are just spectacular ancient trees and if you can get there especially in spring or autumn it's a wonderful wonderful place to walk. Here we are tree hugging.

Yes, that's me. But it does all feed into my sketchbooks. It all feeds into my paintings. You know the light here. Those So much of painting is about observation being out in the landscape taking everything in. These are the ancient cliffs at Kyber just around the corner from Cardigan. some of the most ancient rock formations in Wales. I like to sit there and do a little bit of sketching.

For me, the sketches don't really inform the paintings. What they do is they instill in my hand and my eye and my heart the feeling of the shapes of the things that are there. the bits of grass, the curve on the rock, the waves breaking over the rocks underneath the sea,

the birds in the sky, and all that forms a memory that I'm able to draw on when I actually do the painting. I won't look at the sketches again. They're just a way of getting it into my getting the feeling of what the shape feels like.

The muscle memory.

It's been a wonderful day of gathering information and memories for the paintings that I'll do over winter.