Mottisfont Day 1

The first day as Artist in Residence at Mottisfont House. I'm here to be their medieval illuminator and make work about the early history of the site as an Augustinian priory.  Here is the house and my studio for the next three months.

White Willow

Sketching a white willow in the old Middlesex Filter Beds on Walthamstow Marsh, now a nature reserve.  Wonderful place and beautiful weather.  White willow provides salicin, the active chemical ingredient in today's most common painkiller, Aspirin. The Greek Scholar and father of medicine Hippocrates advised chewing bark to alleviate the pain of childbirth over 2000 years ago.

Honey Locust

Private commission for a christmas gift delivered just in time.

Borde Hill Trees

Children creating their own tree guides  at a drop-in workshop in the peach house at Borde Hill Garden.

Peach House Installation

Creating a temporary installation in the Peach House at Borde HIll Garden with an autumn nature table and artwork from The Garden Histories.

Make Your Own Field Guide

Workshop for home-schooled, year 6 children for The Garden Classroom at King Henry's Walk Garden.

Kew Library

Research materials laid out for me at Kew Library.  I was in search of drawings of Liriodendron Chinense and Emmenopterys Henryii for the Borde Hill Plant Histories.  Emmenopterys is so rare Kew only had one drawing in it's collection.  

Open Studio

Taking part in the Graphic Design Walk Open Studio event organised by Graphic Birdwatching as part of London Design Festival.  The focus was on design studios set up by women.

At the Printers

The Gardens at Ham House comes off the press at Calverts, excellent Hackney printers.

In The Detail

A four person show at Potato Town Studios in north Oxfordshire with painter, Pam Franklin, furniture maker, John Callen and potter, Bridget Tennant.