Colours from the season - Ginkgo Biloba green

It's been a while!

When I was teaching a short course in textile design at West Dean College last week, one of the students very kindly brought me in a small branch from her Ginkgo Biloba tree because I'd mentioned that I had always wanted to draw it. So there was nothing to be done but make time this weekend to draw a few leaves and document their beautiful colours for a bit of brain therapy...

Colours from the top: Leaf green; leaf stalk yellow; fruit green; young fruit blue/green; branch brown.

Many thanks to Sally

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook

Colour from the season - Hard Fern green

As a self-employed designer/maker,  I'm pretty disciplined on the whole. I rise early, walk Luna and start work by 9am. I usually work until 6pm, but sometimes later. I also often work on Saturday and if I'm running a screen-printing or Photoshop workshop, I work all weekend. The plus side is of course that I love my work and as long as I don't beat myself up for not getting something done, in the main, no-one else does either.

These attractive little ferns, which grow everywhere here in North Devon are called Hard Ferns or Blechnum spicant (slightly strange name so called because of their leathery form (?)). I've made time to sketch a few of them, to feature in a new wall panel along with a couple of other ferns, which I hope to put on screen and print at a super-sized scale next week.

I generally design what I would love to live with myself. As Oscar Wilde so aptly said -

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken"...

In case you wonder what soft ferns look like? I'm attaching a photo of a Soft Shield Fern (Polystichum setiferum) below...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

National Trust Artisan collection - Extra Extra!

This morning while printing another large white Chrysanthemum panel, an email came in with a link to this lovely article on the Homes and Gardens website, Read the full article here!

I love the National Trust. So many of my notebook drawings have been inspired and informed by flora and fauna on my walks on Exmoor and in the Heddon Valley. The National Trust protects our coastline; looks after historic houses and gardens; forests, farmland, moorland, islands and much much more! Now they've initiated an Artisan and Craft collection in their shops to celebrate British Craft heritage and I am very happy to have my work included in this! 

The Chrysanthemum panel is now finished, the white flower a symbol of truth. 

Here's a detail of the print drying on my print table...

National Trust Artisan collection

Surely it's inevitable that your work reflects where you live? I moved from London to a small market town in North Devon sixteen years ago. When Elle Decoration Magazine called my work 'Modern Rustic' in 2007, that was the first time I'd recognised the rural influence on my work and I suppose it's continued along its rustic route from there on. There's no question now that my heart's properly in the country - along with my head and other body parts (most of the time anyway!).

Here are a few of the cushions that gambolled off to The National Trust's Artisan and Craft collection a few weeks ago. Look out for them on the National Trust website (exclusively) this Autumn/Winter and in selected National Trust shops..!






































...and thank you so much Country Living magazine for featuring the Copper Beech/Fawn cushion for National Trust in this month's (October) issue!

Exmoor inspiration

These cushions are taking up residence in upstate New York, Lucky things!!! (and yes I do feel a bit envious!). Moorland Rabbit led the way in October last year and now Moorland Fawn and Pheasant are heading over to join him which is just perfect.
They are my nostalgic take on the 1960's - Reminiscent of reading Enid Blyton, riding in Morris Travellers and drinking lashings of Tizer! I screen-print every one (front and back) and so they are all unique. I've become really fond of them all, but especially in these colours.

In much the same vein I've been revisiting favourite Moorland plant drawings and capturing the essence of them in loose inky plant drawings. Here I've overlaid them onto a monochrome version of the tartan backgrounds from the cushion prints - it's just the starting point for a new scarf collection (but which I expect to be in full moorland colour!).

Heather...

Gorse...

Marram Grass...

Excited because our first Photoshop workshop starts tomorrow.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

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 - Ling Heather purple

If you'd like to see Exmoor Heather in full glory now's the season!

The predominant variety (I would say) is Ling, intermingled with Bell (which I documented a few weeks ago). I definitively was NOT going to draw the Ling with it's ridiculously fiddly detail, but in the end succumbed because it would be an injustice to the Exmoorland colours to leave it out...so just a small branch..!

(Off on a slight tangent... In the language of flowers, Heather can mean Protection,
which reminded me of this great song (and album) by Massive Attack in 1994 with Tracey Thorn).



..from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - Heath Fritillary and gypsy blessings...

Today while I was drawing a Heath Fritillary Butterfly (from a photo) a gypsy came to the door and told me that I shouldn't worry because I had a very bright future!! she then blessed me with good luck. (I did buy a small piece of beautiful crochet work from her!).

The butterfly's story is heartwarming. One of our rarest species, in the 1970's it was on the edge of extinction. However since then, thanks to the efforts of Butterfly conservationists, it's starting to flourish again on Exmoor's heathlands. I thought it would be a great little mascot to flit alongside the Moorland plants I've been sketching and while I'm not at all superstitious who knows, maybe my drawing is now endowed with some good luck too.

Early evening on Exmoor near Simonsbath yesterday.

In my sketchbook, much larger than life!

detail...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.