A photography Morning

Beach reflections, helenblairsart

Beautiful Morning at Maraetai Beach with fog lifting, someone fishing off the wharf , people out for a walk and a huge barge cruising across the harbor. Sometimes I love to go out for an early morning walk with my camera, its just fun, I like to capture different moods. It also gives me inspiration […]

Mountain Daisy series

Mountain Daisy series , inspired from some trecking I did with my family last summer around some beautiful mountainous scenery of New Zealand.  I love to get outdoors as much as possible. I did mountain daisy painting and then I felt like doing more, they are a fun series to do. I have to be […]

How to overcome Artists Block

Painting, artist block, helenblairsart

“What I like to do is look at my portfolios of old paintings I did back when I had inspiration. I also look at any other artwork that I left off with, and try to put myself back where I was before I’d lost my inspiration. Sometimes, I’ll go back to places I used to […]

Painting with a Palette knife

Paletteknife painting in oils, helenblairsart

Painting with a knife is a bit like putting butter or jam on bread and produces quite a different result to a brush. Painting knives are excellent for producing textured, impasto work and sweeping areas of flat color as well as tiny shapes of color. Strictly speaking, a palette knife is a long, straight blade or spatula that is […]

Karangahake Gorge

Fog Mist in the trees

Had a nice walk through an old mining site which used to have a train running through 12 kms of tunnels in the Karangahahe hills. This walkway features historic railway remains in a stunning natural gorge setting, including 2 steel truss bridges and a 1km rail tunnel and provide access to the relics of historic […]

Bush Walk

Bush Walk, helenblairsart

My family walking through some beautiful NZ South Island  west coast bush. Painting was done when my family was a lot younger. We took a walk up an old bush track. The bush was spectacular with moss hanging off the trees and lots of bird life. It had been raining the previous days so there […]

Bush walk

Tauraunga Bush walk, helenblairsart

Saw some amazing  flowers and wild life on a treck we did not far from Tauranga. We walked for 3 hours up into the hills and on the way spotted a deer up stream and later I discovered these beautiful bush lilies. The weather was good and I did some sketches of the bridge and […]

Routeburn and Caples Track

IMG_1166

I had a great time doing the Routeburn and Caples , a 5 day treck in the South Island these holidays with my family. The scenery is so amazing  and  I managed to get loads of good sketches and photos for future paintings. I definitely recommend the walk to anybody. You have to go well […]

Ruapehu Art Treck

Mt Ruapaehu, helenblairsart

Had a great treck up the Waihohonu Track at the base of Mt Ruapehu. Took my easel and paints with me and managed to get a quick painting done. The light was changing very quickly and the mountain clouds cleared for a short time enough for me to get it down. I ended up finishing […]

Call of the wild

helenblairsrart - Bush Treck - mini

2/9/11 Now with spring here I really feel like getting out into the wilderness again. As an artist I need to get out doors and experience nature . I feel that drawing directly from nature has a good influence on drawings and can put more life into paintings as well. Im gathering up some extra […]