Finding Love in a Sketchbook with Helen Wells

January 15, 2025

Helen Wells is a British artist celebrated for her vibrant, multi-layered abstract art that blends intricate patterns, expressive mark-making, and organic forms. Though her journey to becoming a full-time artist was unconventional, her passion for creativity has been a constant thread. Her work, showcased in prestigious galleries, restaurants, and hospitals, reflects her deep love for exploring colour, texture, and form.

When did you first know that you wanted to become an artist?

I became an artist a little later in life and have been working as an artist for a decade now. As a child, I was always drawing. I dreamed of being a textile designer or artist. I used to get through so much paper that my father would buy me large rolls of wallpaper lining-paper to keep up with my demand for something to draw on.

But I gave up art at school when I was seventeen and I didn’t go to art college. My route to becoming a full-time artist has been a circuitous one.

I didn’t create anything at all in my twenties, then spent my thirties obsessed with art, but only ever as a hobby. It wasn’t until my forties that art slowly evolved to become my full time career.

Can you tell us about your sketchbooks? Were they always a central part of your artistic practice, or did their importance develop over time?

Sketchbooks are so important in my art practice now. They are the bedrock and birthplace of my art style and art career really.

But it wasn’t always this way. When I first came back to art making as an adult, it seemed to me that I couldn’t do it easily anymore, that I had lost that part of me and finding it didn’t seem very simple.

I wanted to make beautiful abstract art but I just had no idea what to do or how to do it. Back then I started a lot of sketchbooks and would abandon them after a few pages as my expectations were too high and didn’t match my ability.

I would be rather critical about what I had created in these sketchbooks. I expected my sketchbooks to look a certain way and when they didn’t I would be disappointed in my self and judge myself and my abilities.

That all changed when I decided that I needed a safe place to grow and develop my skills and find out who I was as an artist. I started to concentrate on all the things I liked in my own art and see my sketchbook as the place to find out what I loved within my own art and do more of it.

You describe sketchbooks as "filing cabinets" for your art-making. Can you elaborate on how they help you organise and curate your ideas? Or is your approach more organic and spontaneous?

Whether I’m working on a personal project or responding to a brief, the first thing I like to do is seek inspiration in my own art work.

I get a pile of my completed sketchbooks out and lay them all over my floor. I’m seeking a spark, an entry point, things that are calling to me, a way to begin. Sometimes I think ideas or partial ideas are just sitting in my sketchbooks waiting for me to rediscover them and develop them.

One of the things I love about using a sketchbook is that it is a safe gathering place for my ideas, a safety deposit box for me to store half formed somethings and whispers of things that could be.

For me a sketchbook is a filing cabinet of ideas, a library of successful and unsuccessful experiments, a way to capture subjects, materials and ways of making art which are personal to me.

Do you approach drawing in a sketchbook differently from creating finished artworks?

I try and bring the same looseness, playfulness and sense of adventure to everything I create, sometimes I succeed in this and sometimes I don’t. I think when we are trying to create something significant, we can feel the weight of it and it doesn’t help the creative process, so I do try and bring a sense of curiosity and a slight detachment from the outcome, it helps I think.

What is your preferred medium (e.g., pencil, charcoal, digital), and why do you find it the most effective or inspiring for your work?

There are so many different ways to create art and I love finding processes, materials and combinations of materials which resonate with me. It is important to have a personal connection to the art processes we choose, to the materials we use, so that it feels exciting and rewarding. I love so many different materials, watercolour, acrylic paint, collage, pencil…and finding ways of mixing them together.

How has teaching other artists influenced your own creative practice? Have your students ever inspired or surprised you in unexpected ways?

I love teaching. It has taught me a lot about myself and art. When you teach you have to break things down and explain things in a simple way that helps people to truly understand.

Teaching is a process of deconstructing and reconstructing…like art making itself, we have to reflect on what we have created and deconstruct how we did it, why it works, why it doesn’t, what we love and why we love it… so we can take that knowledge and use it in our next piece or project.

My students are a constant source of inspiration, I love it when they find joy in their own creations, a sense of excitement in what they have created. There is something magical about discovering something you love in your own work...it is like opening a door to possibility.

Are there any particular themes that consistently influence your work?

I create colourful patterned abstract and semi-abstract art. It is sometimes intuitive and intricate and sometimes bright and bold. My work often features motifs observed in nature or shapes and ideas derived from drawing objects. I use expressive mark-making, pattern and colour to create abstract pieces which feature repetition and rhythm, layers of complexity and organic forms. I’m fascinated by the interplay of colours, shapes and patterns.

What kind of environment do you find most conducive to creating art (e.g., quiet, surrounded by music, outdoors, etc.)?

I love drawing outside, but don’t do it as often as I would like to, when I do take my sketchbook outside I always find something delightful and interesting. If I am painting I tend to work in my studio in silence…but I will often work in my sketchbook in the evening, whilst watching television or listening to a podcast.

You regularly share your sketchbooks and new work, how do you decide what parts of your journey to share with others?

I’m a fairly open as a person, so I share most of my creative practice now. I used to feel uneasy about sharing my sketchbook because it felt a little too intimate, but I’ve got over that. I think it is important to see the process as much as it is the outcome, I don’t mind sharing the things that haven’t worked, in fact I think it is important to demystify art and creativity. I’m happy to show my workings-out and the things that perhaps haven’t been so successful…because that is just part of art making. You only get to the end result through trial and error, experimentation and a whole series of stepping stones.

What advice would you give to other artists about starting or maintaining a sketchbook practice, especially for those who might feel intimidated by the blank page?

My sketchbook practice has been so valuable to me only because my expectations are now low. The stakes are low. It’s a place to primarily make art for yourself, to let your interests and style iterate and unfold, it’s not about displaying art, getting approval or finished and finessed works, it’s a place to work things through, figure things out and have a creative conversation with yourself. Or just to play about with materials, experiment and discover. So my advice would always be to make it a low pressure place and to lower your own expectations. It is often the gap between our own expectations and the reality of what we have created which can hold us back. If you find the blank page intimidating, you may want to do something deliberate to get rid of the blank page. I often mess up sketchbook pages with scribbles, paint daubs or ink drips to get rid of the perfect white page. Anything to lower the stakes and lower the expectation of a perfect outcome, the more playful we can make creating the better the results. A sketchbook is a laboratory and we have to give ourselves permission to try things out, make mistakes and enjoy the sense of discovery that comes with that.