Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

Bywell Festival 2015

Come with me to the annual Bywell Arts Festival, it is a very short walk from The Stencil Library.

We'll walk down our drive and over Bywell Bridge, the light is rubbish for enhancing the view from either side of the bridge this morning but it will give you an idea of where this place is.

Turn the corner into Bywell....

and we are almost there. The cakes are being unwrapped, early birds are buying plants, I bought several but more were arriving.

Already the car park is filling. Original paintings are hung in both churches and there are a selection of  prints for sale. I am tempted by one of Stocksfield in the snow. My mother is tempted by one of tree roots

 

There is a good mixture of professional and amateur painters, some only show at Bywell and some create work especially for the weekend. Most are from the surrounding area. I am not showing this year but my husband is.

Bywell is tiny, there are two churches, St Peter's and St Andrew's, a handful of beautiful old stone houses and a castle. The Arts Festival weekend is a rare chance to see both of churches open. There is free entry and plenty of parking. #BywellArtsFest is open today until 4.30 and tomorrow from 11. Tonight there is a concert by Prudhoe Communty Choir and there are tickets from the central store in nearby Stocksfield.

 Bywell on Tyne, Stocksfield, NE43, Northumberland.

Helen

 

Stencilled stair risers

We had a lovely mention Homes & Antiques magazine this month, they showed our staircase stencilled with BU2 small butterfly stencil and my husband's stencilled painting of The Girl With The Pearl Earring.

On another page they featured our stencil classes.

There are lots of exciting goodies to look at including a feature called Master Strokes; creative ways with paint which I am looking forward to reading. Thank you H&A.

Helen

All I want for Christmas is a pug dog...

Of course, I will not be getting a pug dog for Christmas but here is the next best thing.

UK design company The Graduate Collection have licensed some of my paintings of pugs. They have reproduced them onto various items and so my Pugnalia Collection will be going to homes..including mine this Christmas.

There are pug pillows. The image is printed onto cotton satin and the back is made of velvet. The cushion is as soft, squishy and stroke-able as a pug!

Three of my original pug canvases have been reproduced as prints and I have framed one of each to sell at a forthcoming art exhibition. I bought the picture frames from Ikea and I purchased a small square frame to display one of the greetings cards.

I think the framed card may make a nice gift.

This morning The Graduate Collection sent me two notebooks, one with the Pugs & Kisses design and one with Pug Rocks, these are the newest items on their website and they feature in the latest 'Graduate Collection Pop Up Event' which opens for one week from Nov 28th to 4th Dec at 211-214 Piccadilly, London. 

The Graduate Collection wholesale the work of their designers to stores and shopping sites. They sell individual items worldwide by mail order.  Pugnalia can be ordered through me at The Stencil Library if preferred, however, I think that it is worth visiting the Graduate Collection's site and pop up shop because they represent a diverse selection of artists and designers from Britain. My work is shown as 'Helen Morris' rather than Pugnalia. The framed prints are for sale at The Forum Cinema in Hexham, Northumberland from 30th Nov to 26th Jan 

Helen

 

Top Drawer and Pugnalia at The Graduate Collection

I am just about to travel to London for the last day of Top Drawer and the start of many other design led trade shows. I shall finish my interior design fix with Decorex on Sunday and return over night. Amongst other things I am hoping to see a collection of cards, prints and cushions made from designs that I stencilled. It is called Pugnalia by Helen Morris and my collection is just one of the ranges offered by The Graduate Collection. I have not seen Pugnalia yet but if the pieces look as lovely as other things that I have seen from The Graduate Collection I shall be well pleased. If the trade visitors have liked them they should be in shops by next month.... I'll be buying some.

Helen.

Rachel's Living Room Preview

Whilst I work on the full post, I thought I would give you a bit of a preview of my living room showcasing the wall where Chips' lastest painting hangs because it is the feature of this room. 

Photo by Stephen Egglestone
You will have read in previous posts that Chippendale-Morris have a new range of paintings.  Chips takes well known art and reinterprets it by meticulously separating the image into thousands of coloured dots which he paints onto large canvases.  Up close, the image will look like a colourful abstract image, but the farther you move away from it, the more clear the image will become.  It is very, very clever as the colours have to be just right and takes ages to paint.  I have always loved anything that puts a modern twist on something traditional so couldn't wait to have a Chippendale-Morris for my own walls.  I chose "Girl in a Green Dress" as it is so very art deco (the main theme of the room).  I saved the chimney breast space for this masterpiece and it was a thrill to bring it home and hang it in place.  We were then able to call the room "finished" (bar a few minor details) and photograph it to share.  The full post will be along shortly but in the meantime, "Girl in a Green Dress" as seen by Chippendale-Morris deserves a post of her own.  I have yet to research this painting and I do not know if the model is known, but in the meantime Stephen and I have named her "Tallulah".  You can see the hint of the stencilling in this room: stencil VN7 Chain Lightening from our Vintage range, stencilled in Sunset Gold paint, on a wall painted with Farrow & Ball's Blue Black estate emulsion.

Bywell Arts Festival preparations

The Bywell Arts Festival starts with a preview this evening then opens tomorrow until Sunday 4.30 at Bywell on Tyne, Northumberland. Entrance free.

My husband submitted four new dot paintings, here are two of them. One above and one below.

There are two churches next to each other in Bywell. During the art festival both are hung with original paintings.

I'll be selling my stencilled bags at the back of St Peter's Church. 

Helen

Pearl Earring painting gets a new home

Pearl Earring was painted by Michael Chippendale for Art Tour 2010.

She was one of four celebrity portraits that he created for the occasion.  Many people admired her. Pearl was bought from us last week and I went to hang the painting in it's new home.

She now looks totally comfortable at the foot of a staircase at the end of a long gallery.   I'm not sure who was happier with the result, the new owner or I.

The painting is my husband's interpretation of the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer. Vermeer's portrait inspired the book and more than one film of the same name.  Chip's version is painted in uniformly sized dots that resolve themselves into the recognisable image as the distance from it increases. The new location allows Pearl Earring the space to be appreciated, she can be viewed close up and at distance. Her new residence is stunning, it is the home of an accomplished artist and features a lot of the artist's own work.

I think Pearl looks very much at home there. For a while she leaned  against the wall in Chip's studio watching him paint.  You probably would not guess from this picture that the face that he is working on is Muhammad Ali.  The other two portraits in the collection were Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.  Since then he has added George Washington, me and Queen Elizabeth to the collection.  Some have been featured at the Chippendale and Morris site and I'll get the others on there soon.

 

 

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. 

 

Chippendale & Morris Modern Mosaics

My husband Chips (Michael Chippendale) has named his new collection of paintings 'Modern Mosaics'.

I have had little to do with the latest art works, mine has been a supervisory (nagging) and supporting role.  I have watched these pictures evolve and they are quite fascinating.

Each painting is based on a regular grid of dots. When viewed up close the Modern Mosaic paintings appear to be a pleasing but abstract pattern, viewed from the side, at a distance or whilst squinting the dots merge to reveal a recognisable scene, object or person.

Chips was not happy with the final result of this one and is repainting her. She looked brilliant to everyone else. He repainted his images of Cassius Clay and Audrey Hepburn several times until he was satisfied that they were good enough to offer for sale.

Would you know what this is?

A pugs nose!

Chips painted the pug knowing that if it did not find a buyer I would give it a good home.  If I had the room I would have them all but I can not resist paintings of pug dogs.  This one is not finished yet. In future posts I'll show you more Modern Mosaics in progress and completed. 

Chip's paintings including the Modern Mosaics Collection can be seen at The Stencil Library, Stocksfield, Northumberland.

Helen.

REcyle, REpurpose, REad this

I have just had the most inspiring coffee break. Firstly, The Daily Basics introduced me to the art of Boris Bally,

photo via daily basics.

They describe him as 'The king of repurposing signs. Road signs, hub caps and bottle tops'..

Museums and collectors are flocking to him and so can you. Then I checked in with The New York Times on line and they had a wonderful article on London street artist Ben Wilson.

Photo Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Mr Wilson paints intricate pictures onto gum that careless people discard on our pavements (sidewalks) then varnishes them for others to enjoy.  They feature him lying on the paving with blow torch and paint. I had not heard of this man but loved the stories and you might too.  Also on NYT is a feature about a picturesque home in Pennsylvania.

Photo Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Brian and Esther Dormer and their artist/decorator have recycled and reworked 'stuff' around their farm  land to make the most beautiful spaces. It reads...'At the Farm, iron chairs wear mink coats, candelabras sprout from picnic tables and crystals hang from the trees'.

My chairs don't wear mink but I do indulge in the other two peccadillo's. Apart from that I can not compete with the scale of their creation. The pictures of the glasshouses and fire are quite dreamy. There is a slide show of photos to enjoy. I liked the comment that the farm workers keep pinching bits of the art installations when they need rope or machine parts.

Earlier today on Design Inspiration blog I posted Ghost Furniture which again is recycled and re-purposed.

Actually I think the term to describe Ghost is up-cycled. And...whilst we are on the subject of 're' you could round off this extended coffee break with a visit to RE-found Objects.

They are just down the road from my shop but they deliver worldwide.

Helen.

This post is repeated on Chippendale & Morris blog.

Chippendale & Morris

Artists Michael Chippendale and Helen Morris welcome you to their new venture.

 
The Art Tour 2011 is rapidly approaching and I need to set up a blog/web site to show and sell our paintings.   Visitors to the new Chippendale & Morris blog will be able to view, commission and purchase our artworks.  Chips (husband and the Chippendale half of Chippendale and Morris) has been working for the past couple of months on these four paintings.  They are large canvases. When viewed up close the paintings appear to be an abstract pattern of dots.  When viewed from a distance the dots disappear and become recognisable faces or scenes. I took some 'work in progress' pics.

 
I'll show more soon.

Helen

 

Take a look at the Art Tour 2010

Art Tour 2010 kicks off in June.

Chips and I will be exhibiting our paintings and stencillings in our show room at The Stencil Library. We have named our new partnership Chippendale & Morris.

Joining us for the month will be four artists from all over our region. I shall clear everything from the stencil shop and hang plain paper over it's stencilled walls.  This is how it looks now...

Goodness knows where I shall store all the stock until July when the month long Art Tour will be over.

The Art Tour is an open studio event.  Visitors are encouraged to spend the weekend touring and visiting artists. It is a big deal in the Northumberland tourism calender and involves artists all over our county. Sharing my studio are Jill Stewart 

and Dave Pickard

  
Wendy Parkin

and Kathy Geater

I shall include my stenciled canvases such as Psycho Pugs on Damask

Chips' flower collection

and stencilled portraits by Chippendale & Morris.

It is the first time that we have participated.  I am hoping that it is a success for all.

Art Tour info here.

Helen