An avid birdwatcher and naturalist, Helsaple moved to Arizona in 2008, where she found home among the spectacular 'Sedona Red Rocks'and where she collaborates with other art advocates and national wildlife conservation organizations. Helsaple partners on projects with Neal Williams the Design Engineer, Mr. Roast Beef, the Roadrunner, Stubs the Canyon Wren, along with flocks of wild birds, watchful ravens, herds of javelina, packs of coyotes and a mystery night visitor, Bob-the-cat or Rocky Raccoon right outside her studio door. Her fine art paintings depict desert wildlife and native plants and she is currently working on several small books on Nature Journaling, and an illustrated Artist Journal called 'A Hat for the Rainforest'. Helsaple is dedicated to quality Fine Art painting and projects that foster art education, creative learning, and building a compassionate world of sustainable conservation and peace. Artistic Approach: Mary Helsaple is one of the 'contemporary painters in the west' in the difficult medium of watercolor. She began creating large detailed paintings of nature in the late '70s after mentoring by Texan Anstis Lundy and contemporary master artists Sondra Freckelton and Jack Beal. Although she grew out of the traditional medium of works on paper, she brought a far different, yet fresh approach to watercolor. Avoiding the genre's cliché pastel colored still-life's and pastoral landscapes, and all-too-often formulaic washy studies of a subject, she chose in favor of a constructed personal vision, that looked at humans and wildlife with a contemporary eye, to convey a modern conservation narrative. National Collections and Exhibition activities can be found on website www.helsaple.com