Another new venture?! Part 2

SO off I went to Seville. I went alone and had an incredibly productive time as I had no distractions. although I could have really done with a friend in the evenings! I powered through my book very quickly!

Seville was perfect. I was so lucky because I hadn't done all that much research other than having people rave about it whenever I mentioned I was going. That was good enough for me.

The city is covered in beautiful hand painted tiles wherever you look. Even the most ordinary housing has hand painted tiles porches and window sills.

There is a wonderful mix of the earlier, Moorish style geometric designs alongside the later, lyrical pastoral spanish designs. This gave me the idea to layer up contrasting styles of tile design using fresh contemporary colours to create brilliant borders for my wedding stationery.

There were some brilliant fonts on display too.

I took my sketch book everywhere I went and jotted down interesting patterns in the stone, tiles, and general architecture.

I had also brought out my watercolours so here is the first attempt away from the Folk House class room

You'll have to wait a wee while for some finished products...they are being kept under wraps for now...

Another new venture?! Part 1

You may think I have enough on my plate...?

Well I clearly didn't think so...and have added another string to my bow. In doing so, I have made the tough decision to fine tune what I do and cut out the event and interior design (it was SO hard to say no to a job of that nature today.)

Last year, my step sister Sally, asked if I could help with her wedding stationery. I couldn't resist but jump in with both feet. Soon a fully designed invitation was in existence and I had been bitten by the bug. The wedding industry is something I have always felt I could contribute to but was never sure of what particular field. 

Sally and Andy's invitation from my instagram 

Meetings with my good friend and super wedding stylist Kirsten Butler helped me start on the long path to becoming a wedding stationery designer, with the opportunity to design some invitations for a shoot at Arnos Vale. I featured those on the blog a little while back and it really got me inspired.

I needed to improve my painting skills so I enrolled on a wonderful 5 week course at the Folk House and got back to basics with the watercolours. It was a botanical drawing class, which is a subject I love, and just happens to be all over high street prints and homewards at the moment. 

These seems to go pretty well, so I started to have a think about what kind of designs I wanted to do for my wedding invitations. After narrowing it down from being everything to everyone, I settled on hand painted, high end, beautiful and delicate patterns inspired by botanical prints. But I had a strong desire to add a contemporary edge. This would come in the use of colour. Poppy Delevingne's second Pucci Wedding dress summed up the feel I wanted to give: incredibly elegant and drawing on traditional fold art and crafts but beautifully bright, daring and contemporary.

This led me to think of the traditional floral patterns found in Mexican Folk Art...Could I justify going to Mexico just to look at embroidered flowers? Hmm, I needed to think a bit closer to home...

So I booked a ticket to Seville.

You'll have to wait for the next post  to find out if Seville gave me what I needed and to get a hint of my drawings and paintings of Seville tiles and architecture

Juno and Joy: Arnos Vale Wedding Shoot writeup

Photo Frances Taylor

A lovely blog post from Juno and Joy Wedding blog was written today about a shoot done by the very talented wedding stylist The Little Wedding Helper aka Kirsten Butler, which featured my wedding stationery designs!

Today I also got the sample prints back for my step sister Sally's invites...I'm really enjoying the stationery design process so far, and building up a store of templates ready to launch a full design service by the end of the year!

Silent January

Apologies for Silent January…We were moving house!

The New Year has already brought a collection of creative projects, once I recovered from the Blind Tiger (see below), I am currently designing the Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory Season in Bristol, a production for the Shakespeare Unplugged Festival at The Egg in Bath and a few exciting other theatre projects in the Pipeline. I have just started a new illustration commission for Cico Books and cracking on with some new Wedding Invitations! 

Happy New Year!

Wedding Stationery Design

Photo Frances Taylor

A very Happy New Year to you all!

I have an exciting new string to add to my bow for the new year. I have enjoyed increasing my illustrations work and am now keen to branch out into Wedding Stationery Design.

Photo Frances Taylor 

photo Frances Taylor

 Both my sister and step sister asked me to do theirs and I never really thought about it as a possibly career path, but the wonderful Kirsten Butler gave me the opportunity to design a stationary collection for a promotional shoot for Arnos Vale Cemetery. These beautiful images were taken by Frances Taylor and styled by Kirsten.

photo Frances Taylor

If you are interested in my work and would like me to design your wedding stationary, please drop me a line on fixuplookchic@gmail.com for a chat and a quote.