Helen L Robertson

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 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, with the rain often adding it’s presence.

Her love for the sea is often 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, letting colours collide and mix on the paper.

She says “I don’t want to be in complete control of the media. 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.

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

She received the Sir William Gillies Award from The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour in 2023.