Helen Cooper
Colour in Your Life featured artist Helen Cooper appeared on Colour In Your Life Season Eight (8)
Read a little bit about the artist here and support our site by joining and watching the episode below.
Helen Cooper has been an artist for twenty-five years. For the first five years she attended weekly oil painting classes, and since then has been painting on her own as well as taking various workshops. When she can, she also takes painting trips throughout Australia and overseas.
Favoring the oil medium for the fluidity, Helen likes to paint all genres, portraits, still life, landscapes, figurative, floral and nudes. When asked about her art, Helen comments that she considers herself a ‘Tonal Impressionist’. She tries to capture the impression of whatever subject she is painting through careful observation of tones.
Painting ‘alla prima’, or ‘wet into wet’, Helen usually completes a painting in one session, believing this method to give a freshness to her work. Utilizing Ampersand gessoboards for their lovely smooth surfaces, she finds the paint sits nicely on the surface, complimenting her painting style.
Though Helen originally began painting from life, she has recently found that by using reference photos she is able to paint a larger variety of subjects. She specifies however that she is only comfortable using photos effectively now after years of painting from life. While she also likes to take the photos herself, all her floral and still life works are executed from life.
You can contact Helen Cooper directly via her website http://www.helencooperpaintings.com/
Episode: S08E03
Original Air Date: 3rd August 2014
