​

Helen L Robertson (b. 1965) has lived and worked as a full time artist in Glenshiel near the Isle of Skye since 1988.

After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art with a BA Honours Degree in Glass in 1987, she spent the following year at The Royal College of Art in London.

 

Light is an essential element in Helen’s paintings. She pursues and captures those fleeting moments where it breaks through the clouds and brings the landscape alive.

Painting outside, she works at great speed, capturing those ephemeral moments before the light changes, nudged by the wind knocking her drawing board and with the rain often adding it’s presence.

Her love for the sea is evident in her work, where she’ll have stood in the brunt of the wind or been teetering on the edge of the tide, just to get the best composition.

 

Her mixed media painting process is as spontaneous and unpredictable as the ever changing elements which surround her in the West Highlands. She lets colours collide, mixing watercolours and acrylic inks on the paper.

She says “I don’t want to be in complete control of the paint. I want to allow the colour to do it’s own thing, as I think that’s when the magic can happen.”

Once the acrylic, inks and watercolours have dried, Helen uses soft pastels to define and draw out the composition enjoying the rich density of colour in contrast to the translucency of the watercolours and inks.

​

She says “I am trying to evoke the feeling of being there, the taste of salt on your lips, wind in your hair and sand between your toes. I want to draw the viewer in and give them that sense of being right there with me.”

Indeed, admirers of Helen's work have often commented on how the paintings make them feel transported to that place.

 

Helen’s paintings are sold in galleries throughout Scotland and to private collectors worldwide.