August 2018 - Helen Avalon

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, to an American father and a German mother, Helen Avalon grew up in several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, West Germany, Trinidad, and the USA.   Both as a child and young adult, she enjoyed painting in acrylic and watercolor.  An acrylic painting that she created in sixth grade still hangs in her sister’s living room.  Later she expanded her artistic exploration to include fabrics, beading, clay, porcelain, woodworking, and interior design.  After working with oil paints for the first time in 2008, everything changed for her and she fully committed herself to a life of oil painting.  Today Helen makes her home in Orlando and travels to new countries at every opportunity to sketch and gather new painting ideas.

“My paintings often start with an idea: a mood, a facial expression or gesture, a juxtaposition of colors or texture, the way the light falls – and that idea guides how I proceed.  Sometimes, particularly when color is my primary focus, I start with an underpainting in acrylic before applying oils. Other times, especially when it is a person’s facial expression or gesture that inspired the painting, I begin with a drawing. There are so many ways of painting and so many unique ways of expressing ideas that I know that there will never be enough days, years or decades to explore them all. Yet each new canvas can fill me with happiness and the thrill of potentially learning something new as the oil paint glides under my brush.”