The little things - favourite things...

The little things in life that make the difference...

...At an exhibition the people opposite your stand are your "view" for the entire show, so it was great to have such talented creatives opposite me at Cornwall Design Fair last weekend and thought I'd share the vista..!

Amy Cooper www.amycooperceramics.co.uk who makes these absolutely magical porcelain lights inspired by the ocean...

Shere Design www.sheredesign.co.uk - I had to cross the aisle to see the fine detail of the whimsical animals and birds in Helen's wonderful illustrative jewellery but it was worth it..!

100 Metres www.100-metres.co.uk  Luxurious as well as sculptural, these fabulous ladder scarves are handmade in Cornwall...

and admittedly a little further down the aisle...

Samme Charlesworth www.samcharlesworth.com Atelier ceramics which are a perfect combination of ceramic and textile!! Hardly surprising then that these plates in deepest Indigo were my 'best in show'..!

I fell in love with this plate embossed with a Chanel printing block, so it came home with me!
The Heart Rabbit, Fawn and Recipe linen napkins (and many more of my product range) come in packs of two and are for sale in my online shop here...

Lastly - my work in the beautiful drawing room at Trereife House. Huge thanks to the Le Grice family for selecting me to exhibit here again!

(Printed as a limited edition of only four !! Three of these cushions have now sold, there is just one left (in a black/white colourway) now in my online shop here).

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.

The little things - Robin Redbreast

The little things in life that make the difference...

...Roy introducing me to his friend in the local woodland (location and inspiration for so many notebook sketches on my blog) - amazing lovely and amazing (!!) and well it certainly made my day today, (thanks Roy!).

Eye contact...

The little things - uplifting articles!

The little things in life that make the difference...

...After a fabulous holiday in France driving 2,300 miles in my VW van, (only one minor incident involving a very sneaky lowdown bollard!). Meandering from the Loire valley to the Pyrenees, exploring a landscape that was more varied, sun drenched and inspirational than I had ever imagined. Highlights included the breathtaking drive over the Millau Viaduct (designed by architect Sir Norman Foster), Chateaus, vines, vineyards and wine! Miles of empty straight roads landscaped with shady Plane and Poplar trees, fields of Sunflowers, Vultures flying like great planks in the sky, and lastly to Bilbao in Spain making time for a visit to the Guggenheim museum (Riotous Baroque exhibition!) and at last getting to see Frank Gehry's architectural masterpiece. Phew - all incredible!

...avenues of Poplars

Olargues (Haut Languedoc)...

On arriving home, I must admit to feeling just a little bit flat - returning to the realities of life again! so it was really uplifting to find a complimentary issue of the latest Period Living magazine (with a five page Artisan feature on my studio/work!) on my door mat! So a huge thank you to Rachel Crow and Period Living magazine for such a lovely article - on sale now..!

The little things - favourite things...

The little things in life that make the difference...

...meeting up with a whole tent-full of amazingly creative people at the Bovey Fair, here are a few of my favourites!


The wonderful graphic and organic jewellery of Chie Mannami - on the stand next to me. You can't have this particular piece as it's now mine! But lots more of her work on her website here.

These are Clare Crouchman's intricate wall ceramics, diagonally opposite me, her work reminded me of Dartmoor - it was like looking across at the most beautiful landscapes. See her website here

Clive Bowen's highly collectable earthenware ceramics, I'm a huge fan, and such a nice man! See more of his work here

Beautiful ceramics by Adam Buick, reminiscent of the Pembrokeshire landscape where he lives - see more on his site here

Great to catch up with Pacha Design and their latest eco furniture collection made from locally sourced, reclaimed slate and wood. See more of their work here

Last but not least, some of my own flora and fauna at the private view!
(Thank you to Anna Trussler at the Devon Guild for taking such a nice pic! See this and more of their festival photos on their facebook page here)

A rustic selection! - can't be helped, surrounded as I am by old A frames and moorland!

Old Tea Rose - Stamping!

I'm delighted that some of my favourite illustrations from my colour notebooks on Planet Sam are being launched this week as card maker's stamp sets by 'Flourishes' who are based in Sunny Florida! Starting with Old Tea Rose (Read my original Tea Rose post here), they will be releasing a number of my illustrations as stamp sets over the coming months (see my interview yesterday on the Flourishes blog here)!

Many thanks to Jan Marie and the whole team at Flourishes for such a warm welcome! I'll be adding a link to the first set when it's released tomorrow (Here), very exciting! in fact I'm thinking I'd love to have some fun experimenting with these fabulous sets myself..! 

(for those of you new to my blog – I only wear (my dad's) specs for drawing!)

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - New Cushions and Shop!

Before I completed my MA in Design (textiles) at Bath Spa University in 2008, I was selected to exhibit my fabric designs at 100%Design (trade fair) in London. For the next five years I showed my work at this prestigious and very exciting trade fair, exhibiting innovative textile fabrics and laser etched cork panels. My work was short-listed for the British Design awards with Rosemary Russet Fabric in 2007 and with Laser etched Cork Squares in 2010.

After five years of out-sourcing all (digital textile and laser) production, I realised, that I seriously missed screen printing and dyeing, the excitement (and messiness) of which had attracted me to a career in textile design in the first place.

So a little over a year ago I started to develop a collection of screen-printed furnishing accessories in my studio. This meant building an exposure unit, screen wash off room, buying screens, squeegees, emulsion, dyes, fabrics, etc. I decided to focus on small scale and bespoke production, use only the finest materials, sourcing, as far as possible from the UK, mainly printing onto un-bleached fabrics as a positive environmental choice.

Printing onto unbleached/natural fabrics has been the hardest in many respects (no white!). However the extensive knowledge I'm acquiring from the seasonal colour research in my blog is starting to pay off, selecting colours from my notebooks which have subtle natural harmony, reminiscent of the Exmoor landscape that surrounds me in North Devon, yet still looking contemporary and fresh. "Think modern rustic"!

Well I've made a few mistakes! and it certainly has been an emotional roller-coaster of a year - but I'm pleased to say I think that I'm now on the right track, at least I hope so! Best of all, my web shop is now fully up and running...

See the whole collection :-  Sam Pickard website/shop

Please feel free to share this post/image/link - thank you!!

Further links
Bath Spa University MA Design Textiles and Fashion
100%design

The little things - love

New cushions - which embrace my love of Exmoor, natural fabrics, screen printing, pattern, seasonal colour, and Rabbits!

Perfect, I'd say, for the back seat of an old Morris Traveller...

Hope you have a very loveful day.

X...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - Postcard from Monty!

The little things in life that make the difference...


....Bloomin' heck! my Monterey Cone has taken off with a life of its own and is travelling all over the world with a little help from Pinterest. I don't do Pinning as I'm told it's quite addictive(!) and it took me long enough to give up smoking.

So - even though I read Leo Babauta's post "Untrack: Letting go of the Stress of Measuring" (Zen Habits) only today and I am mostly almost fully (!) in agreement with untracking - has to be admitted that it did give me a bit of a warm feeling that it's so well thought of - 3,000 page views today! ..x

x (one more for luck)
...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things - a new pencil

The little things in life that make the difference...

...am I the only person who can't find a pencil when I need one? (unless it's a 3" stub or an H lead!)

So, I'm feeling very pleased today with my new clutch pencil :) which should always be the same lead and length (KEEP OFF)!

The little things - new old specs

The little things in life that make the difference...

...discovering that my dad's old specs are the
perfect magnification that I've been needing for
drawing has really made my day - (my week probably)..!

the little things...my new iron

The little things in life that make the difference...

....the most stylish iron I've ever owned !

form as well as function - might admire it on a plinth for a few days.

The big things...life and death

Recently I began sketching a sheep's skull that I found on Exmoor, starting two drawings on 22nd Feb and not finishing them, returning to them every so often with the intention of doing so but not being able to. Yesterday, driving back from South Devon, we came upon a beautiful place near the village of Lustleigh. It was a perfect Spring afternoon, lambs gambolling in the fields and so we went for a walk. When I got back I decided to finish off one of the sketches. So here, the two sketches, one finished, one still unfinished and a few photos of the sheep we passed along the way...

Sign for footpath to Lustleigh village indirect, or footpath to road near old Manor House -
wonder how indirect that is?!

Not a care in the world.

Very tame these South Devon sheep
(note how their branding colour co-ordinates with the grass).

Mehh...

If you like this post - you can subscribe to Planet Sam by email :) here.

The little things...Inspirational old puzzles

The little things in life that make the difference...


...Finding these the"Victory" wooden jigsaw puzzles in the market, became the perfect excuse to have a break from everything digital on a frosty February weekend.


Probably produced sometime between the 1930's - 1940's

Part way through - The little animals and other objects
are called whimseys.

...there was a rabbit and a squirrel, a mouse, cat, swallow 

an axe and two swords.

Ta da!  'Welcome Home' - Sea, Boats and People. 

Sadly 3 pieces missing, but hoping I might find these 

in the other puzzle!

(p.s. they were in the other puzzle!!! - good job we got them both.)

the little things - not too wet to Woooo!

the little things in life that make the difference...

This year I've been developing a range of products, what with one thing and another going on it's taken longer to get this up and running than I had anticipated, partly because I decided that the range would be hand screen printed here in our North Devon studio and that involved quite a lot of setting up, but also well..because I'm quite a perfectionist, and I wanted the collection to be very special!

I decided to return to screen and digitally printing the products myself, they are therefore individual, exclusive and have the quirky differences of the handmade. All the materials are of the highest quality and sourced in the U.K. wherever possible. I also use unbleached materials wherever I can as a positive environmental choice.

See the printing of the Owl cushion last week at our screen print blog Exposed
(Designed and printed by Josse and Sam Pickard).

Top image: Wood Panther Moth one of 4 prints bringing the 'Night and Day' series onto cushions.

All are now available on my online shop HERE, and we ship anywhere in the world!

The little things - New Year New Nibs!

The little things in life that make the difference...

...finally getting around to buying some new nibs for my dip pens. I spotted these on ebay - described as vintage, they were from Hungary and there were 84 nibs in total.




















I'd worn my old nibs down so badly from use, that they were looking like this - not good. The nib holders are worn out too - the top one is cork and wood under all that ink.



















A new nib and a lovely old tin to store them all. (must get
a better nib holder than this bog standard plastic one).



















No excuses not to draw - I may never need another nib -
Happy New Year!

The little things...exposed

The little things in life that make the difference...

...something we always planned since we found our lovely old garage/workshop in North Devon ten years ago, is at last happening and we are opening it up as a print facility, where we plan to run workshops, ourselves as well as with guest practitioners, offer print services, hold exhibitions and discuss all things relating to print (and dye). The first blog post went up today showing the logo being printed - you can follow us and see what we're up to over the coming months at exposed.

The little things - The President's Prize!

Flying high last friday when my Moths and Butterflies exhibit won the President's Award at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey! It was a real honour to receive this, and particularly as it's their Silver Jubilee celebration year. Fantastic also to finally see the finished design displayed in their (architecturally designed) gallery space and not just from a ladder above my print table! 

later spotting my little leopard moth as a very large banner on the side of the building was exciting too!

Finally thank you to Ekta Kaul for the lovely posting on her blog about my work. A very talented textile designer herself. You can follow her blog here.

...the little things in life that make the difference!

The little things - Bucks Mills Cabin

A big thank you to Sammy and Glenn of pachadesign for inviting me to be part of their exciting exhibition which opens next weekend at Bucks Mills Cabin in the charming village of Bucks Mills on the North Devon Coast!

This tiny house, 'The Cabin' was the summer home of artists Judith Ackland and Mary Stella Edwards from the 1920's to the 1970's, and it's still an evocative time capsule of their lives together. Left exactly as it was in the 1970's, today it is owned and preserved by the National Trust (read their blog post about the exhibition here )

 
"The project with pachadesign, Sam Pickard and Ramp is a great way to bring the cabin to life in 2011. Involving local artists who are also inspired by the same coastline as Judith and Mary, 'A Modern Take' exhibition is the perfect opportunity to open the doors of the cabin to the general public and get people talking about contemporary craft and design, in a setting which is lost in a different era." - Hannah Jefferson from The National Trust. 

Each designer taking part will select a few of the objects from the cabin and replace them with pieces of their own work, pachadesign (furniture), Ramp (Ceramics) and Sam Pickard (textiles). Here's a few images from the interior and exterior of the cabin, (prior to any objects being replaced!)...



















The cabin will be open 15-17 & 22-24 July from 11am - 3pm.



















and the designers...

www.pachadesign.co.uk

www.rampceramics.com

and myself..!