August has been the month of the photoshoot and I have had four shoots in my little flat in the last couple of weeks. Two with Sarah Mason taking pictures of the new Charlotte's Garden wallpaper, one for the Yorkshire Post 'Artist at Home' feature (out in September) and one for a book that I am delighted to be included in called 'Quiet Pattern' which is being written by wallpaper designer and stylist Abigail Edwards who I have admired for some time.
Abigail came to Hebden Bridge with her friend the photographer Alun Callender (who did the pictures for my Country Living feature) and looked for all the pattern in my studio and home. It was great watching the stylist at work and gave me lots of inspiration for my own photos
Wallpaper is not the easiest product to photograph. You need a good clear wall with space to stand back from and until I did work on my flat to create one big room out of two little ones earlier in the year I haven't had such a wall. But now I have and it's been a game changer!
For a week I had two papers - the mist and the heath in my bedroom and even though i was a bit strange to have two colours on one wall it was good to live with them for a while and get the feel of how they look in different lights...
and it meant I got to play with some styling ideas prior to the shoot. My ukulele had to get in there!
I wanted to go with a garden theme for some of the shots and I had fun in the Willow Garden in Hebden Bridge where I bought these old scissors and this lovely twine.
And I was delighted to spend some time at Simply by Arrangement headquarters too and Sarah lent me this lovely Labour & Wait apron, her Grandad's watering can and lots of her favourite vases...
as well as some generous snips from her beautiful garden.
Me, Sarah and Emma had a fun day creating shots.
and I am really happy with the results.
The next day our fantastic decorator Emma came and put up inkwell on top which changed the room completely. We papered the whole wall this time...well I say 'we'...SHE papered the wall effortlessly. It's amazing to watch how swiftly she can hang it! I took mental notes!
Sometimes I can spend weeks coming up with a colour name that just fits but the name 'inkwell' came the moment we first saw it hanging on the factory wall. It fit with the Charlotte Bronte theme and I had a vision of dark wooden writing desks and dippy ink pens.
I was delighted to find this beauty in the Antique Centre which was the perfect prop and they helped find me the yellow ink pen too which complemented the paper nicely.
As I was about to leave I thought I'd ask if they, by any chance had a pair of Charlotte Bronte style glasses.
I couldn't believe it when he said he'd seen some in the charity shop that morning. They were so tiny and delicate and I had to buy them.
The Parsonage Museum kindly lent me these antiquarian copies of Jane Eyre. I instantly fell in love with the beautiful gold typeface and knew they would fit perfectly. Andy from Vinegar & Brown Paper etched me a 'stories yet to be written' inkwell which I love.
So it's been a fun and busy few weeks and now I have lovely images to spread around the world.
My house has had a deep clean too and I'm looking forward to putting my feet up in it this weekend!
