About the Artist
Linda Heslop
Linda began drawing at an early age, tutored by her father who was an artist and architect and encouraged her throughout her youth. In her early teens she expanded her drawing and took up painting seriously, with both watercolor and oils.
As a result, Linda’s realistic style led to work in illustration, logos, magazine covers, feature articles, and several books at an international level. This included her own book, The Art of Caving, an overlook of her two decades of caving with her husband.
By her thirties, Linda was the worlds most known Speleo Illustrator and also became recognized as the most published caver artist worldwide in the 1990s. In addition, She was the second recipient of the National Speleological Society’s Arts and Letters Award. A commissioned presentation of her work hangs in the Guillian Karsts Museum in China. Linda joined the Island Illustrators Society in the early 1990’s.
Linda has been a resident of Victoria, British Columbia since 1957. She moved here from Scotland at the age of eight and currently lives with her husband of forty six years. Linda Heslop paints with detailed realism and now paints mainly in watercolors adding highlights of water pencils to add depth to her starfish and tidal pools.
Linda often looks beneath the surface in hidden places for her subject matter, inviting the viewer of her paintings to glimpse deep into caves or see the treasures secreted in tidal pools. She views art and science as interconnected, therefore most of her work features the natural world.
Although viewed as formal art, many of her works are actually science studies attempting to reveal the beauty of physics or biology, such as that found in a tumbling wave, the way light falls upon stone, or the tenacity of life in the intertidal zone.
“I am simply in love with Vancouver Island. It resonates with my soul. Although, because of its size, no one can explore its entire wilderness within a lifetime. I have enjoyed visiting as much of it as I could. I’ve been to the northern-most tip before a main road was forged, hiked the West Coast Trail before it was a world-class destination, enjoyed Pacific Rim Park in the days when one could camp on the beach and have explored many of the smaller islands. I love the adventure of the caves, even discovered and mapped some of them. Although I love it in all its glory, it is the shore I am most drawn to for my art. Water and stones being my inspiration. My work is achieved in the genre of realism because, in my view, no artifice is required to convey the perfection of wild Vancouver Island. Almost every stone I paint exists, forged by time, tide, glacial travel or erosion. Each with an amazing history. Every shoreline a work in progress in a timescale hard to grasp.
“I live here because I love it and I paint here because I must. It is and will always be my home.” ~ Linda Heslop
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