Majestic Florals from Designers Guild

I love this time of year, as most of the major fabric houses start releasing their new interiors collections into the marketplace. The latest offerings from Designers Guild are rather spectacular, I am definitely going to have to check this first design out in person.....

Amrapali features vibrantly painted floral bouquets and is digitally printed onto a soft linen. A contemporary design that wouldn't look out of place in Marie Antoinette's apartments at the Versailles Palace.

Amrapali wallpaper

Lotus Flower is an exotic design inspired by Indian miniatures, loosely painted onto a distressed background.

Jacaranda is another freely painted design featuring elegant birds perched amongst oriental blossoms, and is available in four equally lovely colourways.

This indigo colourway is my favourite.

Mehsama is a beautifully painted monochromatic floral wallpaper design.

You can view the Designers Guild Autumn / Winter Fabric and Wallpaper collections online here.

Spring blossom season

Spring is almost here and I can't wait! Here are a few of my favourite blossom related images collected and photographed in the last couple of weeks.

From the garden

My favourite scent from L'Occitane

Almond Blossoms by Vincent Van Gogh, February 1890

Sprig of Almond Blossom in a Glass by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

I bought this vintage French tablecloth with an embroidered blossom design from Lavender, Lace & Living in Maldon, Victoria

Apple blossom

Almond Blossom and Swallow frieze designed by Walter Crane for Jeffrey & Co 1878.

Japanese Sakura design from here

Whroo wattle and winter blooms

Winter blooms spotted in the Whroo State Forest, Central Victoria.

l'Herbier d'Emilie Vast

Staying up into the wee hours to watch Cadel Evans racing his way through the French countryside to victory in the Tour de France inspired me to re-visit these beautiful books by French artist / designer Emilie Vast. I picked up a couple of copies in Paris a few years ago for the Linen House design studio library, but these are so lovely I couldn't resist adding a few titles to my own library via Amazon France.

Arbres

Feuillus d'Europe
Published by editions MeMo, 2009

Petite flore 
des bois d'Europe 
Published by editions MeMo, 2010

Plantes sauvages des villes

Published by editions MeMo, 2011

Spare, elegant, with a touch of inspiration from Art Nouveau decorative design - Emilie Vast's art work is beautifully laid out on thick matt paper in a subdued colour palette.
A great reference point for anyone interested in contemporary botanical illustration and textile design.

Take a look at Emilie's website here
editions MeMo

Lovely illustrations from Bernadette Watts

Every now and then I love to kill time (aka procrastinate) by browsing around the shelves of my local bookshops. A couple of days ago whilst in Readings St Kilda I came across a paperback version of The Brothers Grimm classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated in an eye-catching 1960's style combination of wax crayon, texta and oil pastel by English artist Bernadette Watts. 

This version of Little Red Riding Hood was first published in 1968 in Switzerland by NordSud Verlag AG, the version I purchased was published in 2009 by North South Books Inc, New York.

Bernadette Watts studied at the Maidstone Art School in Kent, where her tutors included the popular children's picture book illustrator Brian Wildsmith. 

Bernadette has illustrated dozens of folk and fairy tales over the last forty years - her many titles include The Bremen Town Musicians, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Aesop's Fables, The Ugly Duckling, and The Snow Queen. I love her illustrations in this version of Little Red Riding Hood - the painterly, chunky oil pastel drawings of whimsical flower fields, forests, the delicate Little Red Riding Hood, the wicked wolf, and last but not least, her grandmother, are all so very magical.

Now I'm off to hunt out my box set of 32 Micador oil pastels from my RMIT days! I wonder if they are now available in a set of 72?

Take a look at Bernadette Watts' website here.

A butterfly a day

I love to play around with mono-printing every now and then. I finished this butterfly design last night sitting right next to the heater. Brrrr.

Happy Days

The last few months have been a bit daunting to say the least, but in the last few days I have seen a little turn-around for the better and coming home to find my work featured on one of my favourite blogs in the universe planted a very large smile on my face! The print & pattern blog by London based designer Bowie Style (marie) has been my first blog check each day for many years, in fact I think it was probably the first blog I came across. Marie does such a fantastic job profiling trends, showcasing new (and in my case, a little bit not-so-new!) talent in the surface pattern design fields, and her what's-now-in-store snaps are a fantastic resource for designers in far-flung places! Thank you Bowie Style!

A special delivery

My business cards and postcards have just arrived in the post. Thanks to Amanda at Augustine for helping me out with these - much appreciated. 

Now it's time to get this show on the road!