Painting Flowers with Helen

Photo of a desk with paints, a painting palette, a gouache and watercolor floral painting and an ipod showing a video of artist Helen Dardik.

I know I’ve used this space to vent about the internet before, but even I have to admit that the internet is not a complete cesspool. If it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t have discovered Helen Dardik, an artist whose work I greatly admire. Helen paints these beautiful, bright and whimsical paintings. Her paintings are like mornings—full of light and possibility.

If it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t have learned that last week Helen was offering a free online painting workshop, but thankfully I saw that and was able to sign up for the mini class. The event was not without some technical issues, but overall was a lot of fun. (The original plan was to have a split screen with two cameras, one facing Helen and one overhead to give a clear view of her painting. Unable to get the overhead camera to work her assistant was forced into the role of human tripod.)

The idea was that all of us participating would paint along with Helen. She had a floral picture in mind that we would paint and even showed a sample sketch of her idea beforehand, even though her actual painting was done on a fresh, clean sheet of paper and she admits that she doesn’t usually sketch out her ideas but prefers a more free-form approach.

Prior to the class, Helen had sent an email to all the participants with a list of the colors of paints she would be using in her painting. They were a combination of gouache and watercolor paints, and she said that the students were free to use whatever colors we wanted to use. In keeping with her free-form style of painting midway through she changed her mind about the shade of blue she wanted to use. I could see how this on-the-fly change might annoy those with a more structured approach, but I appreciated this fun, creative approach, and I felt like it was a real glimpse into Helen’s process.

I actually got to try out this free-form approach with my own painting when at one point the stream got so glitchy that I could barely see what was going on. As it turned out Helen was adding a butterfly to the top of her painting, but until the glitch sorted itself out, I couldn’t tell this was what was going on. So, instead my painting has a little snail at the top because that’s what my painted blob most reminded me of. My finished painting looks like a much less polished version of Helen’s work with one key exception, that snail at the top who was entirely my own touch.

I picked up a few painting tips from Helen’s little tutorial, but I think the best lesson was the reminder that’s is okay to deviate from the plan and that it’s good to be whimsical. So, have fun out there, don’t take anything too seriously and add a little more brightness and fun to the world, because it definitely needs it!