When living in a city like Jaipur, you are surrounded by so much artistic and aesthetic inspiration, it's almost overwhelming at times! From bougainvillea and roses to elephants and monkeys... I tried my hand at painting all manner of things in the past year - with varying degrees of success. It is thanks to this city I had the time to contemplate something larger scale with them.
Making Of
Painting In The Pink City
I've loved painting for as long as I can remember but it was only through tablescaping that I found the reason to pick up my brushes again on a regular basis. I began to want to create more bespoke and personal elements for each dinner party. The lovely Bianca at Bable made me some candles painted with butterflies and I was determined to make a design to match (pictured left). I didn't have any paints in the house so used a combination of Little Greene tester pots and food colouring! The meditative peace I found while painting was second to none. I asked for some watercolours, fine brushes and Caran Dache pencils for my birthday - there was no looking back!
The move to Jaipur was a big upheaval for our 3-year-old and we found she took huge comfort in drawing and painting. Wherever we were, if she had a piece of paper, crayons or felt tips, she was calm. This therefore meant much of my time was spent by her side at her desk; I painted even more.
"My style is romantic, colourful and whimsical, but the drawings are quite simplistic too. That characteristic is in many ways a strength when rendering the florals into blocks for printings."
Bougainvillea Paintings
The place cards for our very first dinner on the terrace in Jaipur.
I think I must have painted nearly a thousand roses across everything from menus and cards to wardrobes and bookshelves before I had the confidence to transfer the style over to a print. I captioned these first strokes on my Instagram Stories with a quote from Mark Twain (above). Read more about what happened next here.
From first brushstrokes and drawings
on paper to the final collection
of table linens.
Next Steps
The pencil drawings were then traced and carved into wooden blocks for prints.
