Cover featuring Braids (Tempera)

After picking up  Andrew Wyeth | The Helga Pictures, I had to share some visual and literal highlights. First, here’s a little back story..

“The Helga Pictures” are a fantastic compilation of tempera and dry brush paintings, watercolours and pencil studies secretly created within a span of over fifteen years. Andrew Wyeth created over two hundred and forty individual works of neighbour Helga Testorf from 1971 to 1985 without telling a single person, including his wife. He stated that he would not have been able to have finished the project with everyone looking at it.

Braids (Detail)

Braids (Study)

Sheepskin (Tempera)

Pageboy (Drybrush)

“Drybrush is layer upon layer.

It is what I would call a definite weaving process.

You weave the layers of drybrush over and within the broad washes of watercolor.”

Pageboy (Detail)

Lovers (Drybrush)

“There is motion in Rembrandt – his people turning toward the light.
But it’s frozen motion; time is holding its breath for an instant – and for eternity.
That’s what I’m after.”

Lovers (Study)

On Her Knees (Study)

Andrew Wyeth | The Helga Pictures