Day to day inspiration

Over the weekend I was accused of being ‘in a bubble’ based on my lack of observation of the world around me. The reasoning being apparently I always answer a question that starts with ‘did you see’ with ‘No’. It is true, I don’t notice much when I am rushing around trying to fit everything into my days but that’s life isn’t it?

Not for E.Lawrenson, our most recent artist collaboration who gets so much of her inspiration from the day to day observations she’s makes. Manmade and natural form, she looks for inspiration for her two styles of art as part of her daily life. Her styles are irregular drawn shapes, usually taken from the rural landscape near her home in Holmfirth, or the more hard edged geometric images which stem from her manmade observations. 

She was born in Yorkshire where she continues to live and work as a printmaker from her home studio near Holmfirth. 

Gaining a MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 1998 and winning several awards for her work, she has now been a printmaker for over ten years. 

Using the screen printing process, the artist achieves smooth, flat and crisp images, exploring shape and form through the layering of colours, textures and painterly marks.

Her works is based around repetition, forming patterns, and using lines, stripes and hand drawn textures to add interest. 

Below is an extract from an Interview with E. Lawrenson from last year which illustrates beautifully the importance of observation in her life for the pieces she creates. 

“I am a printmaker, using only the screen printing process at the moment. I make abstract prints inspired by anything and everything around me. I notice unusual shapes, patterns and colours then try to make some sort of order out of them back in my studio. I can take shapes and images from almost anywhere and am constantly scanning as I go about my day. Deciding what is worthy of noting, or drawing is sometimes a struggle. If I’m lacking stimulus or feel overwhelmed by all the stuff in my sketchbooks I’ll go out for a walk with my dog in the hills or by the river and absorb colours, textures and clear my head. 

I have two main styles of working; one is the more hard edged geometric or linear style and the other, the more fluid abstract shapes and organic work. 

I tend to focus back to nature and the rural landscape when I find myself going off on tangents. It makes me channel into an area I find calming and makes me work at a slower pace. I find the organic prints are the most beautiful. They have softer lines and curves. These also tend to be the prints with the least colours, so never seem to go wrong.” 

View her work online

I am pleased to be able to give you some snippets about this new addition to TROWBRIDGE and I am sure that most of you, either our well established clients or those of you new to our Blog and our website are now able to see why we are so glad to be able to offer these pieces. 

After seeing her work and where the ideas come from, I am going to make a much more conscious effort to keep my eyes peeled, clearly I have been missing things! 

Charlee

De Bry Flower Wall

Well the weather is not going to oblige in giving in to spring any time soon, but the TROWBRIDGE design studio are trying to entice it in by producing an awe-inspiring collection of beautifully classic florals. I know ‘awe-inspiring is a bit of a cliché but this collection really does deserve a cheesy descriptive due to its wow factor.

In stark contrast to our Statement Pieces we introduced you to recently, this is a beautifully petite collection that in its entirety can have just as much impact.

The De Bry Flower Wall is easily our biggest, purposely designed collection; perfect for that vast empty space you’ve been looking for inspiration for. 

We’ve taken forty floral favourites, from the classic daffodil, iris and rose to the more exotic passion flower, lily and cactus to create a truly impressive statement ideally sized for that blank wall above your sofa. 

The full complement of forty pieces, framed in an elegantly simple, distressed gold frame, made in-house by our frame makers, measures 89 x 78” (or 226 x 198cm for our metric friends) and should fill any space needing an injection of fresh spring colour. 

If your space is more compact and bijou, or you need just blue or red florals, each piece is available individually measuring 10 ½ x 15” (27 x 38cm). 

So, if you’re project calls for that botanical finishing touch, be it a luxuriously over-sized family room or petite powder room, this collection should fit the bill. 

If you'd like to find out more please contact your Sales rep or send us a message from our contact page.

Have fun deciding on your favourite – I have too many already!

Kelly

Weather for a good book

Having read the UKs forecast for the coldest March weekend for fifty years, it looks like my excited words for the onset of Spring were a little premature!

Back to hot chocolate and a good book for me this weekend, I have a couple from my local library to get lost in so the snow can do as it pleases. 

There is something about a library book and generally books that are a little over thumbed, it makes the stories within them feel more real. Perhaps it’s the faint dusky smell or the yellow edging of the pages, it all provokes my imagination. 

TROWBRIDGE artist Charlotte Morgan uses her imagination when handling a story book too. She is giving new life and some incredible colour to vintage book covers by turning them into works of art. Charlotte's collections of individually hand painted book covers focus on groups of wildlife, sea creatures and domestic animals in all there are more than 70 images and colour combinations to choose from. Dolphins and turtles to lions and bears to every mans best friend, the loyal pet dog. Taking a well-read story book, she first creates texture and movement by sponging different colours over the entire book cover. She then paints the outline of the animal or sea creature with a complementary colour. Every cover has touches which give character and personality to the animal and because each one is hand drawn and painted no two are exactly alike. 

You can see Charlotte at work in her studio creating these wonderful individual pieces in this video:

Hope you have a great weekend,

Charlee

Spring

It is a general consensus here at TROWBRIDGE that we could all do with the summer arriving, sooner rather than later. Today gives us a glimmer of hope as it is the first day of Spring and although we haven’t had any blue skies, it at least has warmed a little since last week’s snow.

I love this time of year. The evenings get lighter, the air is warm and my long weekend walks shift from being a muddy ice trek to just ambling through the woods taking in all the sights and smells of a new season. I am already noticing the wild flowers peeping through the grasses amongst the trees which are also starting to turn. Add lambs bouncing around the fields and you have my perfect Spring image.

Our new Agapathus Wood collection by the ever wonderful Amanada Ross also takes hold of the spirit of spring and illustrates it beautifully.

These exquisite purple and blue wild flower prints by the English artist are derived from her inspiration of the countryside around her. The life-like quality of her work is achieved through printing directly from cuttings of her carefully selected flowers.

Amanda uses inks and a variety of templates made from the cuttings and transfers these images onto fabrics. Because each piece is unique, the resulting collections evoke the many faces of nature; from structured, ordered, simplicity to wild chaos.  The Agapanthus Wood collection has a feel of wild chaos, typical of the countryside in spring.

TROWBRIDGE prints this collection on Somerset Velvet fine art watercolour paper and the series of 4 fine art giclee reproductions of her original works are of a Limited Edition of 295, each one is signed by Amanda herself.

Amanda’s collection of four Blue Garden pieces and four Taupe Allium are also stunningly detailed and make wonderful additions to the TROWBRIDGE Botanical collection.

I hope that looking at these pretty floral images has sufficiently helped you move out of the winter mind set, it has me.

Charlee

Urban Inspiration

Last week I introduced you to our new Spring 2013 catalogue – I hope you have enjoyed thumbing through our new collections, exploring our brand new triptychs and fantastic statement pieces, and finding some treasures that you hope to use in your upcoming projects.

Martin Trowbridge is always attracted to an image with a story and we find that it’s always easier to sell your vision to your client if you have that little added something about the piece that they can relate to; be it the story of the photographer or designer who created the piece, the reason why a piece was drawn in a certain way or the theory behind the design of a collection. 

One such story comes straight from the bosom of the TROWBRIDGE family. 

Lucy Claw joined us last summer as a new member of our production team. Since she graduated in 2004 Lucy has been putting her degree in Textile and Surface Design to great use as a freelance designer producing fashion and interior works that have sold worldwide. Lucy is inspired by the urban world and her contemporary textiles begin life as sketches of her environment. Lucy has developed her own unique style of embellishment which sees her applying glossy textures, beautiful appliqué and hand-embroidered stitching to her wool and cashmere designs. 

TROWBRIDGE is very proud to present Lucy as our newest in-house textile designer and her beautiful leaf designs promise to be a great new addition to our successful botanical textile collection.

Lucy’s first collection for TROWBRIDGE is this restful set of four sycamore leaf designs in cool steel blue. Lucy has used lush velvets, felts and silks, embellishing them with appliqué and precise hand-embroidery. She has cleverly given depth to the piece by applying glossy textures to those leaves in the distance.

Lucy has promised us two further collections which I will be sure to show you as soon as they arrive.

Hope you enjoy her work,

Kelly

Stuart Redler

High Point Spring Market in North Carolina draws another week closer, time really does fly when you are having fun (or are super busy).

The highlight of last week’s High Point prep, for me, was finally seeing Stuart Redlers ‘Skiff’ Triptych hanging in the window of our Kings Road Gallery in London. It looks incredible and cannot fail to rival the sales of Stuart’s Turtle Triptych, which has been a best seller for TROWBRIDGE Gallery since the first day it went in to the gallery window. 

The piece has a really interesting story too, which adds to my love for the piece. When Stuart’s father passed away he spent lots of time going through his father’s belongings and organising his estate, and it was during this time he found this incredible boat that had been left in a shed for 50 plus years and was inspired to photograph it. 

I am really interested to see how this piece is received at the show, the team and I already think it’s a winner. 

Redler’s work is very popular at TROWBRIDGE, his photographs of architecture, people and animals feature heavily in our new Spring 2013 catalogue. 

A few examples of his work below: 

He has contributed greatly to our collection of new pieces for the home furnishings Market in April. 

Stuart’s great strength is capturing thought-provoking architectural shapes, sometimes in the most ordinary and mundane places. This is shown perfectly in his new triptych, entitled “Wheel”, a stunningly simple portrait of a large cart-wheel. 

His photograph of a peacock captures the extravagant eye-spotted tail of the male, beautiful detail even in sepia. As a triptych it is an extremely powerful image. 

Another thought-provoking triptych is entitled “Ummm”. Take a look for yourself as this is exactly the thought that comes to mind when looking at this piece. 

We have also taken his more established pieces and created something a little bit different with them. The Blue Turtle has been given new life in a lavender shade and we also see him now on a blue background in white, the contrast is brilliant. 

I wonder what else the team are going show me that will inspire me to write, we have such a packed week, it’s anyone’s guess!

Charlee

THE WOW FACTOR

Some of the most exciting pieces to come out of our new creations for this spring are our Statement Pieces - a gloriously oversized collection of varied interest pieces that will certainly have you saying "Wow"!

This collection has caused quite a lot of healthy debate in the TROWBRIDGE camp as it is such a diverse selection of epic pieces - there is a favourite for everyone. With subjects such as planes, boats, horses, beaches, architecture, birds, people and elephants covered, you'll be spoilt for choice just as we were. 

One of the most talked about images is of a Native Indian Chieftain called Garfield. He was head of a Jicarilla Apache tribe and in honour of the 20th President of the United States, James Garfield, the Chief was given the official name of Chief Garfield Velarde. It's reported he lived to the ripe old age of 108! I think his portrait is wonderfully atmospheric of the era and will make a great talking piece at Market. 

If you're looking for thought provoking, and that thought being "the world is a big place", then The Mighty Elephant might be your choice. All that sand versus one elephant, quite a desolate scene but beautiful in its simplicity. 

Now for my personal favourite, which was pretty tricky to choose but I ended up going for the epic choice - The Fly By. It's quite an emotional choice for me too, my late grandfather's passion was planes of all kinds and I know he would have loved this atmospheric fly past of a DC-3 Dakota. 

We are taking a total of fifteen of our immense statement pieces to the High Point Spring Market (North Carolina) in April, along with 1100 other pieces including our best sellers and around 500 new pieces - where will we fit them all!?

View all our Statement Pieces

Here's to an epic Spring Market!

Kelly

New 2013 Catalogue

In the last six weeks over 500 new and exciting images have been created in our Graphics and Art Studio for our showroom at the High Point Furniture Market in April. It has been challenging at times but the team remained positive and very creative and the results are fantastic.

As our final task in this process we have created a new 2013 TROWBRIDGE Gallery Catalogue to share these fantastic new creations. The catalogue boasts fresh room shots showcasing our new artwork and comprehensive information about each series.

Our new collections are always a great labour of love and we have covered many topics with our new pieces including planes, horses, flowers, wildlife, cars, birds and boats. We have made some stunning additions to our successful triptych collection and put together a brand new collection of large scale photography that will certainly catch the eye. 

We hope you will agree that our 2013 collections are fresh and inspiring – we certainly enjoyed creating them. You can browse the complete catalogue on our website.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Kelly

Spring is on its way

I am so excited that the evenings are slowly starting to stay lighter, this winter seems to have stayed for far too long. I hugely prefer the summer, the only benefit of winter for me is I always have an excuse to stay firmly ensconced in the sofa with a stack of magazines drinking buckets of hot chocolate.

In Sundays pile was the March edition of Country Homes and Interiors, a must read for anyone who has an eye for interior design, enjoys craft work or has green fingers. I tick all three boxes.

I was delighted to turn the page to the Botanical Brights article and see featured one of our contemporary butterfly prints. An obvious choice of artwork for this article with the focus on bringing spring indoors with floral patterns and bold colour. These beautiful butterfly is part of a collection that are captured as giclee prints on deckled fine art paper, in a variety of juicy colours. I think that the writer of the article chose well as the luscious reds and oranges of this butterfly look stunning with fresh greens and stark white of the décor. The collection of 9 vibrant butterflies are available in a hand-painted white with sepia mirror insert frame.

So even though it’s still not quite picnic weather outside, this country garden article with our majestically coloured butterfly has really given me a spring in my step to start planning for warmer days.

Happy Spring Feeling

Charlee