Pencil Artist of the Week: Cindy Hellyer Heinz

This week’s featured pencil artist is a full-time color pencil artist and teacher from Warrenville, Illinois. Her name is Cindy Hellyer Heinz, and her surrealist drawings combine elements of life and decay to create art that is all at once beautiful and disturbing in the best possible way.

Cindy began studying art at the age of seven and hasn’t looked back since. Her works explore the effect time has on the human body and other organic material, resulting in gorgeous images depicting rotting vegetables and time-worn flesh. This theme of rot and decay can be found in all of her drawings, providing a stark contrast to her artistic medium of choice and the vibrant colors her works contain.

Cindy’s creative process is built on the idea of layers. Cindy creates the first layer of the image using a variety of color pencils, and then builds on top of this layer using alternating layers of light and dark until the drawing is finished. The result is a feast for the eyes that is absolutely saturated with color.

Drawings by Pencil ARtist Cindy Hellyer Heinz

If you want to see more of Cindy’s work, you can check out her website here. Cindy was also featured in a video series that showcases her creative process, which can be seen here.

What do you think Studio 602ers? Let us know in the comments!