Commissions

Description - The Brief

Tony approached me to create a unique silk scarf for his wife.  It was to be a gift for their special wedding anniversary, close to Christmas.

They were planning to travel to Boston in the USA in the Autumn as they love this time of year there. Whilst there, Tony was going to take pictures of the beautiful countryside especially the trees and leaves which change to an amazing colour in the Autumn.

The Process

Tony was able to send me some photos that he took on holiday, but unfortunately, they were not the best quality and there were few close shots of the trees.  Despite this, I was able to get an idea of the colours and shapes, especially when he told me that his wife loves the colour green and has red hair.

I used my Photoshop skills to cut away a lot of the background so was actually able to get some good images of the shapes. I then drew some outlines to create an interesting all-over surface pattern and chose billiard green and fiery red for the background, which I graduated to the centre of the length of the scarf. I researched these particular shades from my trend analysis work for womenswear so the scarf would work well with her existing wardrobe.

Description - The Brief

Shawn Bailey MBE commissioned me during the first Lockdown to paint a canvas of his beloved pet German Shepherd, Tara on an A4-sized canvas.

The Process

I asked Shawn to send me some photographs of Tara, in particular close-ups of her face.  This was to allow me to get a really good idea of the shape of her eyes, her expression, colouring and the texture of her fur.

I started the portrait with a number of pencil drawings and colour testing until I was happy that this was right.  I then hand-painted her image on the artist's canvas using gouache paints, with the focus being on getting the colours as accurate as possible, especially her eyes, fur and muzzle.

It was also really important to try and capture her personality as Shawn describes her as being “a very happy dog”.

Description - The Brief

Roxy asked me to create a bespoke silk pocket square as a birthday gift for her fiancée.

There were certain elements that she wanted to be incorporated into the design including:

• The Eiffel Tower where he had proposed to her
• The infinity symbol
• The well-known brand colour for Tiffany jewellery
• Their initials ‘R’ and ‘S’
• The following quote from the film Moulin Rouge “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”
• A deep burgundy colour as the border.

The Process

I started the design process by hand drawing the Eiffel Tower and painting the infinity symbol.

The following three options were discussed with Roxy

Description - The Brief

Simon and his beautiful, talented daughter Emily approached me to create a unique silk scarf and handbag as a surprise gift for Emily’s mum.

Emily is a budding artist and brought along her sketchbook.  They asked if some of her artwork could be a key feature in the design and I was happy to oblige. 

The Process

Emily and I sat together to look through her sketchbook and there were lots of drawings of animals, especially dogs and foxes. We eventually decided on drawings in pencil and crayon that complemented each other and would scan really well.

I was able to manipulate these on Photoshop to make the lines really clean and sharp and then undertook some trend analysis with regards to colour.  After working on the motifs of the dog and fox, I put these into a repeat pattern and created two designs for Emily and Simon to look at.

The first was designed to look like a floral design from afar with the grey puppy looking like leaves and the fox faces resembling flower heads.

The second design was simply the scaled-down faces of the two animals in repeat. The fox colour was also changed from the original brown to a more rustic orange to allow it to sit well with the current trends for women’s accessories.

Description - The Brief

Cathy approached me to create a unique silk scarf for her mother-in-law for her birthday.

She had visited Monet’s Garden in the spring and taken some photographs of the tulips. The tulip montage was to be the starting point of the design but although I felt that the pictures were absolutely stunning, the background colours of deep acid greens would not be right for her mother-in-law.

The Process

In order to transform Cathy’s photo montage to create a beautiful pattern, I needed to make some changes and also, I wanted to add some of my own hand-drawn elements. 

I firstly drew some tulip shapes inspired by the photos, using a black ink pen and a continuous line method of drawing, and then I used Photoshop to overlay my scanned drawings and incorporate them onto the existing tulip photographs. I also cut away all of the green and yellow background at this point.

I next added some silhouettes in white, as I thought black would be too harsh for her mother-in-law and with all the different layers of line drawing, photos and silhouettes, the design started to take shape.

Sky blue was chosen for the background instead of green as Cathy told me that this was the colour of her mother-in-law’s eyes, and this really complimented the fiery orange and peach tones of the tulips.

Description - The Brief

Haidee asked me to design a silk square to be framed as a gift for her sister’s wedding.

She gave me a lot of flexibility in the design but wanted the following details included:

• Her sister and fiancée’s initials
• The date of the wedding
• Certain colours and flowers from her sister’s bouquet.

The Process

I started the design process with the flowers from the bouquet and arranged them in a heart shape loosely forming a wreath.

The initials were placed in the centre of the square and I included the wedding date beneath these.

With Haidee’s permission, I was able to find the family’s Scottish coat of arms and this fitted very nicely at the bottom of the wreath.

I also incorporated a border in warm grey to contrast well with the pale green and grey shades of the background and his allowed the heart to be highlighted in the palest mint white.

I gave Haidee a choice of two designs one with some accents of deeper reds and the other with softer colours. After she was able to take a look, she chose the softer hues, and I was able to complete the design and send it to my printers in Nottingham to be digitally printed onto the silk.

The Brief for her Scarf

Jude contacted me to design a silk scarf for her that would portray her five beautiful horses. She emailed me a number of photographs of them and said that she wanted to wear the scarf whilst training and coaching.

She said that she loves bright colours so asked me to make it as vibrant and colourful as possible.  We discussed this and agreed that navy blue would make a great backdrop colour with hot pinks, oranges and reds.  The navy would also match her favourite navy coat.

The Process 

The first photographs of the horses that Jude provided were of them standing and grazing, which did not really reflect the power, personality and character of these wonderful animals.  I asked for pictures of them galloping and I instinctively knew this was exactly what I needed for the design.

Description - The Brief

Sophie Leadley from www.vivavacations.co.uk  told me that she has travelled all over the world with her husband and really wanted to capture this on a pocket square.

Some of the places/objects she mentioned included:

• The Eiffel Tower
• Sydney Opera House
• The famous Las Vegas sign (where they were engaged)
• The Great Wall of China
• Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro
• Parachuting in New Zealand as he loves skydiving
• A tuk-tuk in Thailand
• A Japanese lantern
• The castle of Malcesine, Italy (where they were married).

Sophie said that she thought it would be wonderful if he spotted something new each time he looked at the pocket square.  There was a discussion about colours and she said that she loves greys but her husband loves bright colours.  It was agreed to use raspberry pink around the edges and perhaps some elements of pink in the middle so that it would not appear dull.

Description - The Brief

Ali asked me to design a silk pocket square that he wanted to wear on his wedding day in Italy. It had to compliment his wedding suit and also include the ‘flower of life’ pattern.

The Process

As Ali wanted to incorporate this particular pattern within the surface pattern of the pocket square, I started by doing research into this design.

I then painted free-hand my own interpretation of this involving circles and petal shapes, using marker pens as I know that these scans well into the computer. I chose a gentle watercolour paint for the petals and created a repeating pattern in my drawing.

Ali was asked if he wanted his and Sarah’s initials in the centre of the square and was really excited about this idea as it meant that the pocket square would be absolutely personal to the two of them.

The final design aspect was to exactly match the Pantone Pink colour of the design to his wedding suit and I was able to ask my printer to colour match to the correct Pantone reference.

Harry Wheatcroft Rose Scarf

Helen Deakin asked me to create a scarf using her beautiful roses from her garden. The roses were very special and have a connection with Nottingham as they are named after the famous rose grower Harry Wheatcroft. 

The Process 

I took several photographs of the roses growing in Helen's garden as a starting point. From this, I added drawings of roses in silhouette and butterflies. The orange and flame-like vibrancy of the flamboyant Harry Wheatcroft rose with the gorgeous reds of the Dorothy Rose against the two tones of the turquoise ground, make this truly a unique silk scarf. Helen absolutely loved it and said it bought tears of joy when I presented it to her.