Posy - Ivy, Pine, Mistletoe

Seasons Greetings!

It's easy to get caught up with life and imagine that everything is going along ok for friends and family you haven't been in touch with for a while. This seasonal posy is for those who are having a difficult time this Christmas, with lots of love...

Very Happy Christmas and New Year 2015 - where does the time go?!

Screen-printing - Budgie Chrysanth Bespoke

It's a relief when a custom print is successful. It requires attention to detail as mistakes are expensive, both in terms of time and wasted fabric. I've just printed this Budgie Chrysanth panel (in fact it's still drying on the print table). Hard to see in these images taken in artificial light but it is pretty damn perfect! 

The customer saw my work earlier in the year at Selvedge Fair and phoned to ask if I could print a fabric panel to hang on the wall of her new kitchen, matching the colours in her blind (a Sanderson fabric (left)). Here's the printed colour swatch I sent her...

Once the colour was okayed, I sample printed to check number of squeegee pulls as this can vary hugely depending on the dye, type and weight of fabric etc. Very glad I did this, if I'd guessed I think I would have got it wrong...

There are fine details in areas of this design. Too many pulls with the squeegee, and the white of the Budgies eyes will fill in, however not enough pulls and other areas will not have enough print coverage, so it's tricky and had to be just right... 

Learning to stay away from my feet when I'm printing - Luna...

Screen-printing - Beech Table Runners

I've always believed you must design the things you like yourself (as far as possible) and would want to live with. I've never cared too much about fashion, my home style is a fairly eclectic mix of things I love, and things I don't have the discipline to get rid of! However the longer I live here, on the edge of Exmoor and the North Devon coast, inevitably the more it infiltrates my designs, the colours I'm using, and choice of materials.

I'm planning to print a large panel of the Beech as I think it will be uplifting to have branches of Beech inside my home (in fact i've always fancied living in a tree house), however in the meantime when asked to create some work for an exhibition, I decided to re-design the Beech for cushions (previously posted) and also a runner.

A two colour screen print - black outline and infil colour...

In the studio today - if the photo looks a bit overcast that's because the day was!

The (seasonal) leaf colours range here from late Autumn on Exmoor in the rain, through to Winter bleached out and frosted. I love all these colours but the darker Autumn brown is my favourite (and was a nightmare to achieve!).

Packed these up in a brief ray of sunshine last week.

In Springtime, I'll print Beech green.

In my online shop soon or email me.

Colour from the Season - Great Spotted Woodpecker red

The last two months have been busy, I've worked almost every day including weekends yet I have still fallen behind with deadlines, which is unusual. Honestly, I think I've been quite sad and maybe this has been the incentive to finally draw this beautiful Great Spotted Woodpecker that a friend gave me earlier this year (he's been in the freezer).

I drew two sketches, I liked aspects of both, the wings and feet of the first and the head of the second (below). The feathers are mainly soft neutrals, contrasting black and white spot patterned, and a dramatic red crown - I thought Constructivist colours...

The first sketch...

(spilled the ink)

and in every rare spare moment - I've been training Luna..!

'My Head is an Animal' by Of Monsters and Men (2011) is what I'm playing to death at the moment. This one's 'Slow and Steady'...



...from my seasonal colour sample notebook