For the next 12 days starting on Christmas Day and ending on January 5th (the traditional “12 Days Of Christmas”) I will be featuring 12 equine artists. Over 80 artists entered in the contest to be featured on our Facebook group Art Of The Horse (which has over 3,700 members!). I used this handy tool to randomly pick 12 of the entrants to be featured on TFS. For day eight, let’s take a look at Helen Coulter’s equine paintings!

Helen Coulter

Website, Facebook

Queensland, Australia

Hello, my name is Helen Coulter, my love of painting, drawing and horses is an all consuming passion in my life, I have always just been able to draw, from a very young age and I feel very fortunate that I have the opportunity to paint the wonderful animals in your lives, to listen to your stories, to share the joy and love that you and your friends have shared with them.

As a child I was given a toy palomino horse and from that moment I was completely captivated by horses, I still have him to this day.
I went to Art College but went into advertising and moved around a fair bit so drawing really went out of my life for a while but I always felt something was missing. One day a friend asked me to paint his wife’s little dog and he paid me and that’s when I started Helen Coulter Art and have been painting ever since.

I get to put paint to canvas every day to create something unique that captures those special moments. I have now been painting for over 20 years and I am still so excited each time I start a new commission. I like to use Acrylic paint, it suits my style, being a wonderfully versatile medium allowing me to achieve not only a softness but also the attention to the small details.

I have loved and lost some wonderful animals of my own, they taught me the importance of being true to your animals as I paint them, the finished piece must capture all that is them.

I have been influenced by many different artists with many different styles, I take something from each of them and it has helped me grow. I constantly study and enjoy other artist work, and take inspiration from them. I am very particular with my work, it must be accurate and true to the subject, a lot of the time I actually start painting with the canvas and subject upside down. This technique allows me to focus on shape, tone, light and shade and then when I turn it upright I have a perfect base to start from.

This past year has been a very busy one as I have worked on getting my new web site up and running and now also offer selected paintings as high quality prints. In 2017 I plan to offer pastel and pencil drawings both as commission and as prints.

When not painting I like to spend time with my beautiful fur family, my 3 dogs, Ted, Cloudy, Scrumpy, my 2 cats, Loui and Moe, my 2 horses, Cass and Riv and my goose Katie! Riv is only 3 yrs old and we have just started our riding life together so it is a very exciting time for me. I live in the Noosa Hinterland and am truly under the paws and hooves of my wonderfully spoilt family. Thank you for taking the time to look at my work, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like me to do a painting for you.