Helford

Helford
by Sophie Velzian

Inspired by a page in my Helford sketchbook. A strong South-Westerly gusts across the Helford, the recent heatwave still fresh in the memory. The beaches of Trebah and Durgan glow pale against the tide line. The Helford pines rear their heads, defiant to the winds. 

Acrylic on paper bonded to board
35 cm x 37cm
Framed in white wood slab frame 50.5 cmx 61 cm.

Sophie paints where she walks with her dog and swims, inspired by the atmosphere and interplay of weather and landscape in Cornwall and Scotland. Working initially outside in gouache she scales up these small paintings in oils and acrylics in her Helford River studio, to share the feeling of immersion in the landscapes.

These initial pieces are richly hued and layered, sometimes with materials from the site itself, and accompanied with written prose to capture the story, and then filed into her sketchbooks.

In her studio, they develop into larger oil and acrylic paintings, that capture the initial response but also have a sense of time through the layered colours. A colourist at heart, Sophie loves to find the hidden and surprising colour in the neutrals, the shadows, the skies.

Sophie graduated from the Slade School of Art and worked in user experience for many years until moving to Cornwall in 2020 to pursue her art full time.