Helen is a local artist and has been working at the Crafts Study Centre for the last year. Her passion is for drawing, colour and print. With a degree in Illustration from Liverpool and an MA in Narrative Illustration from Brighton, Helen was Artist in Residence at Ochre Print Studio in Guildford during 2018.

Here she talks about her practice and inspiration.

I love to draw, when I was little it was endless faces for whom I made up names, and now because line and colour are my way of recording the world around me. At Ochre I chose to document the users of the studio, from the disability arts group I used to help with, to artist key holders who are professionals in their print technique. I decided to make aprons, some made of fabric, others of screen mesh and paper using narrative drawings and combining print and heat press techniques. I exhibited the work form the residency at the Lightbox in Woking and the Riverhouse Barn in Walton-on Thames during 2019.

During the residency I fell in love with the heat transfer process, the vibrancy of colour, and the fact that you can draw and make marks using the paints to create really expressive work onto fabric, especially neoprene. Alongside teaching drawing and painting, I’ve taken this process into community workshops at the Watts Gallery and Farnham Maltings, as well as making it the focus of taster sessions at our own UCA. Three details from the aprons made at Ochre have been digitally printed onto Paris Chiffon and velvet scarves which are in the Crafts Study Centre shop.

I have been inspired by the vineyards of the Surrey Hills and made drawings of the harvest in October, the spring pruning and inflorescence. I like the muscular, stark shapes of the vines in winter, and the way the abstract lines of wire and wood support the lush fruit and leafy tendrils in the summer. I’m currently working with these drawings to create a body of work, again on textiles and paper which will be displayed and for sale at the Surrey Hills Artisan Festival in August 2020.