Big drawings. How to prepare? The tiny sketchbooks I carry, which I bind from offcuts and scrap are – well – tiny. So, my Tower Gallery residency project being about the building, bringing my love of appropriate materials from my design life I’ve made one big sketchbook from lining paper, … Read More
A lemon top ice cream in Redcar. That hadn’t been the plan. Whitby had been my next colour trip, for jet black and the Old Norse for white, more of which later. But getting there turned out to be fiddly so I had designed a scenic route North, wiggling down … Read More
“It’s very green”, commented perfumer Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays of my selection for a taster set. Visiting to collect, I dropped off a copy of my Water, Colour zine of live garden illustrations. The result was a fascinating conversation about how green straight from the tube never quite tells … Read More
Three days off; three train journeys; two places; countless colours. My colour trip – a plan to wander guided by places with colour stories – was scuppered by the pandemic. But thanks to a suggestion by creative collaborator Narcis Sauleda, I’m reviving it in bits. On a week off in Scotland … Read More
Bake crisps from Oddbox veg. Make kitchen ink (onion skin, carrot, turmeric and paprika, tea). Pay a visit to Fibrelab, who are making paper from hospitality waste. Draw odd veg crisps with kitchen ink on paper made from towels. Why? Well, it’s for the latest episode of Studio Snack, the … Read More
The point of playtime… Away from my desk, I grow things, I draw things growing – and sometimes I join it up, turning growing things into things to draw with. I’ve saved petals from French marigold dead-headings. For a while, I’ve been using the basic method of hot water and salt … Read More
My lockdown project turned blog has sprouted a collection. Dispatches from a Small World reports from my urban garden in sketches. There have been forays into garments and cards. But there are enough sketches now to find themes for products. Hello roses! A classic, you would think – but approached … Read More
The mechanics of the design process are often set out as diagrams – templates offering a route to creativity. They’re useful in explaining how things work. But they miss out one crucial thing – the bit where the magic is. The unexpected. Learning to be open, to let things go wrong … Read More
Adventures in natural colour… It all started when Cordwainers Dye wanted to join in with an activity I had designed for East End WI joining up drawing with embroidery. In turn, I took part in their bundle-dyeing workshop. And so, a conversation started about colour. Experiments with natural inks are … Read More