Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

It's coming.....

 
At long last, I have finished redecorating my living room and we have taken photos.  We are just formatting and organising them and should have them on the blog soon, as promised.  Watch this space.

Rachel.

Butterflies on the ceiling

This is what I have been working on for the past two evenings.

I have my friend Sabina Rose working with me and we are creating a butterfly ceiling as a surprise for another friend. It is in her bedroom.

Earlier this year I wrote a post called moths around a flame and showed you this. 

Well, I am now stencilling the supersized version.

Firstly,it took Sabina and I much effort, sticky tape and swearing to get the two halves in perfect postition around the chandelier....yeah guess who forgot the tape measure.

We stencilled each butterfly with a metallic paint called warm silver from Modern Masters. Then we added a light layer of acrylic paint from Liquitex over the metallic base.  Some were mere hints of colour and others were more brazen, all were applied with stencil brushes.

The two halves of the circle stencil overlap so we lifted an edge to stencil underneath it.

Once the butterfly circlet was finished we removed it; then we got arty with some breakaway butterfly stencils.

These are individual versions of the butterflies and moths that make up the central design. I stencilled a few butterfly motifs to determine the direction of their flight and Sabina followed behind me filling in the swarm and adding colour. 

 
We will need a few more free evenings to get the ceiling completed, eventually it should be an explosion of colourful, shimmering butterflies and when our friend gets to see her new bedroom ceiling we hope that she loves the result.  

Helen.

Tour our home. The Gustavian Bedroom

Continuing the 'tour our home' series let me introduce you to the Gustavian bedroom. 

It's my bedroom and I stencilled it in 1997. Although the walls are scuffed and the room now has a shabby appearance, I am loathe to paint over it....but I will.

I chose the colours to match the view of the garden.

The bed is in the centre of the room and from there I can see the Tyne Valley through both windows.

The idea for this room came from grand Swedish houses during the Gustavian period.

Also, I took inspiration from the botanical wall paintings at Wallington Hall in Northumberland.

You will find the floral stencils in our Garden Room Range. The allover stencil pattern on the floor and the boxes is in the Blue and White collection.

A border stencil of laurel leaves from the Empire Collection frames botanical prints and stencilled panels.

Rachel and Stephen visited Wallington Hall recently.  I will show his photographs of the wall paintings in a future post so that you can see the design influence.

The Gustavian bedroom is one of the rooms that visitors see on tours of The Stencilled Home and appears in the book and Dvd of the same name.

As soon as I have plans firmed up for a replacement stencilled room I shall paint over this one and create something else...  I hope I will enjoy it as much as this one.

Helen. 

 

Love London

 

When I visit London I like to arrive early, buy a travel pass then board a bus and see where it takes me.

 
I have found all sorts of weird and wonderful places. On my last trip I took a bus ride along Park Avenue and saw these sculptures.

 

Before my next trip I 'd like to buy photographer and writer Barbara Chandler’s book Love London and visit the city through her lens.  I have met Barbara many times in her role as a writer and have featured her photography on this blog.  This morning I was thrilled to see Barbara's work made into fabrics, digital wallpapers and other home goodies. I found them on DesignersBlock, the author Di Overton often takes her readers to wonderful London locations. I shall be in the capital next week visiting 100% Design, Decorex and Origins trade exhibitions.

'Stencil It' The movie!

This morning Jacqui Small Publishing are sending a team to film me demonstrating projects from the 'Stencil It' book.

One web site has exclusive rights to show the film for the first few weeks....and it's not my websites or this blog.  As soon as I have details I will pass them to you.  When the exclusive period is over I hope that I shall get a copy to post here and on the ordering pages for Stencil It.  I believe that I shall be demonstrating how to stencil onto fabric and walls.

I intend to use metallic foils, plaster and paint in the 'how to stencil walls' bit. My technique of stencilling matt and metallic paint will be the fabric project.  If there is time they are taking their cameras on a mini tour of my stencilled home. I think we have a maximum air time of six minutes which is the usual time allowance, so there will only be one or two rooms featured.  We have enough here to fill a series. There is a DVD called 'The Stencilled Home' which takes the viewer on a 'tour' of our house. The Stenciled Home book fulfills a similar purpose.

 So far, I have seen only the The USA publication of Stencil It.

It arrived a couple of days ago.  It's a different cover and different spelling from the European version. Also, different companies feature in the resource section but it's all the same projects and photographs. Both books have fifteen laminated card stencils for you to tear out and use.

Initially I was worried that card stock was to be used instead of the translucent stencil film that I prefer but I have to say that they look good. I was very impressed.  The publishers decided to go to the expense of having them laser cut as opposed to stamping them out so result is more sophisticated than most card stencils and the lamination makes them water resistant. There are an additional five stencil designs commissioned as templates in the book.  There is instruction on how to cut a stencil from them.  All other stencils that appear in the photographs will be available for sale on The Stencil Library web sites.

We will create special 'Stencil It' pages on both sites. This will help enable the reader to recreate any  of the looks featured within the pages. The book is available for pre order now and will be despatched as soon as I have the UK copies.  USA copies of will be available through book and stencil retailers such as amazon and Stencilwerks.

Helen.

Stocksfield Festival 2011

I have just spent the evening hanging festive bunting,

building a stage,

hoisting tents

...and taking pictures of other people working.  Stocksfield Festival happens every two years, it needs volunteers, talent, planning and more than a little luck to make it a success..... I hope that the weather is kind to us. If you are in the area and want to visit, expect live music, cakes, craft and trade stalls, cakes, competitions, sport, cute Jersey and Highland cattle, cakes, magicians, story tellers, cakes, face painters, hot and cold food, The W.I, A vintage fire engine, cakes, cricket, raffles, soccer, choirs, bands, soloists and a ukulele band.  Oh and did I mention cakes? 

Stocksfield Festival, Stocksfield, Northumberland. September 10th from 11.30.

Helen.

Sex and pugs and rock 'n' roll

I don't think they were quite the words that Ian Drury and the Blockheads sang.

A similar title ran across the cover of Country Life this week. It featured delicious Bertie the pug...more of him later. 

One day I shall make a dance skirt featuring pugs, it will be similar to my stencilled Elvis skirt.

 

 

It will have this pug face stencilled all around it and the words 'sex and pugs and rock n roll' swirling between them. Classy? Well no but since when has that ever stopped me?

 

 

Recently, I posted that Chips was painting a pug portrait as part of his Modern Mosaic series.    It is now finished and hanging in the gallery space at The Stencil Library.

It is for sale but I am coveting it.  Our painted pug is similar colouring to the afore mentioned cover star, Bertie.  When Bertie is not modelling he works with Ruthie Burgess and the team at Nicky Haslam Design. Visit Bertie on the NHD blog.

In the 1970's I read about an illustrated book called Pugnalia or similar, I have never found it but searching for it just now I found this...

 A pug cup cake baked by the writer of Arliss The Pug blog   Isn't it joyous? I laughed so hard, I love it!

Other delightfully daft pug ephemera should include the velvet pugs in glass dome that my Aunt Sandra made for me,

and my pug purses. I have another pug bag stencilled for me by Rachel Morris but I'll save that for another pug related post.

I will leave you with an image of a pug inspired print room,

You can find other stencilled print rooms on this blog and stencils of pugs here and here.

I would sign off with 'pugs and kisses' but that would just be too corny, now wouldn't it?

Helen.

 

I've been spotted!

Whilst I was away last month Chips painted a portrait of me.  

Can you tell that it's me?  Not yet, I hope.

Am I getting clearer?

Here I am 'hanging' in the studio.

The painting of is the latest in the series of Modern Mosaics that Chips has been creating for our Chippendale & Morris collection.   The choice of using my face instead of the usual bright young things that he selects was not just a romantic gesture, no, the pug dog face that Chips painted last month was the romantic gesture.  This was a test to make sure that he could make portraits from customer's photographs.  He said it was tough to find the right photo and he had to view quite a lot before he saw a picture strong enough to disassemble into dots then reconstruct as a recognisable image. 

This may not have been the actual photo that he used but it's pretty close. I am wearing one of my favourite hats, I bought it at Subiaco Hatters,West Australia and it has travelled the world with me.

The dot painting of the pug dog deserves a post of it's own...it's coming soon.

Helen.