The work of Beatriz Milhazes. *swoon*

Last week the time came for me to throw out my huge back log of Elle's (and a few of my Elle Deco's). Keeping a hold of my post-it noted pages for inspiration at a later stage, I can't believe I'd forgotten to ever go back over the work of Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes. "Beatriz Milhazes works in the pure aesthetic style of the Pattern and Decoration movement. Influenced by her native land of Brazil, her vibrant and bold use of color and patterns create work that is as much playful, free and psychedelic, as it is geometric, organized and rhythmic".

Beatriz applies her marks to canvas by painting onto shaped pieces of plastic and transferring the colour over - like a printing method. Since 1987 she has worked out of a compact studio, which happens to be situated next door to Rio’s botanical gardens. Naturally, the forms and patterns of the flowers have heavily inspired and led the organic and flamboyant outcome of her paintings. For more info: http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/beatriz-milhazes/

My Florence Broadhurst arrived!

I'm very tired tonight and my eyes hurt from painting very large and lavish feathers for the past twelve hours nearly! Anyway, my Florence Broadhurst book arrived and its yummier than expected! In a very unlikey manner, I'm not going to blab on about it and will just share some of my favourite pages. Any textile designer should own a copy: Florence Broadhurst - Her Secret & Extraodinary Lives by Helen O'Neill.

Today has been mainly spent...

ORGANISING!! My wall space, visual research and getting rid of 4 years worth of Elle magazines. After a week of designing and 2am-ers I was buried deep in chaos. 

Surface textures...

This week is being spent drawing and painting new imagery to be turned into designs for wallpapers, soft furnishings and one off screen prints. Here's a few scans I have pulled together and manipulated to start working from today. 

The magic of book cover illustration...

They just don't make 'em like this anymore!
A year or two ago I had a trip out to a small village up the road called Osmotherley and came across a small antique shop which basically turned out to be a storeroom for the owners life time worth of books, designer wrapping papers, patchwork quilts... My favourite find was the amazing collection of books for sale.

I've always loved antique book covers for the hand rendered approach to the illustration and application of print onto the backing clothette. Like screen prints, its nice to see small off-centered imperfections and depth of embellishment. The imagery always beautifully stylised, usually with an impression of Art Nouveau or Deco (my favourite periods). These days, we see a growing contradication within the world of design between the thriving trend for hand illustration and graphics on products, and the development of technology such as the Kindle and Ipad helping to aid the decline of purchases on physical material. Book publishers are adjusting to these new technologies but some still recognise the importance and magic of owning the solid material. Penguin have been running open submission competitions and commssioned established artists and illustrators to redesign classic book covers. Designer Coralie Bickford-Smith has worked on many covers for Penguin and has recently produced a collection of pattern based designs for F. Scott Fitzgerald. Visit: http://www.cb-smith.com/ 

Needing inspiration...

I haven't done a moodboard for my design work for a while as I've been so busy with Designers Marketplace and researching various manufacturers. I need to get back to drawing this weekend and needed a refreshment for my theme and ideas... these days I rummage through Tumblr for inspiring images most of which these images have been taken from (I am not claiming ownership of any of these images unless otherwise stated). Its a great resourse for imagery of themes and concepts if you can ignore the fact that most of the users are under the age of 20, you can pull out the good stuff! I find great interiors and textures, perfect for moodboards and getting you fired up again.