The Drawings behind the Christmas Angel

I thought you might like to know a little bit behind the Christmas Angel that we released earlier this month, and maybe have a sneaky peak at the preliminary drawings. If you’re new here, then it’s worth saying that every drawing starts with a hand drawn design, but these always start with some extremely rough designs in my sketchbook.

I love to create a little cosy space when I’m working, I designed these back in May, so it felt completely the wrong season.

The initial idea for the Angel came from the number of requests we had for our first Angel design I created in 2022. I knew that there was potentially a demand there for it, and I also felt like I had exhausted the British Flora and Fauna that could represent the festive season. I wanted it to feel Christmassy and charming, and still have my artistic style at it’s core. I created a mood board on Pinterest ( yes I know I sound like I’m planning a wedding in the early 2000’s) and kept coming back to Eastern European Folk Art styles. I loved the idea of the Angel carrying a tribute, either flowers of some sort of banner.

Initial sketchbooks, I worked in a yellow ochre felt tip, because black felt too stark even for preliminary sketches

Thinking about floral tributes, with either Tulips or Lily’s.

It might seem a little backward in these modern days of ipads and apple pencils, but I still very much have to explore new ideas in pen and paper, before looking to my digital tools. Things just don’t make sense until there is a physical drawing. And a blank page on Illustrator or Photoshop just leave me cold and likely to procrastinate. Strangely, I was the same writing my dissertation all those years ago, and nearly wrote all 8000 words by hand before reaching for the computer.

I also love photocopying or scanning drawings and printing them in black and white to work back into them, I think this came from my first job working in a art supplies and photocopying shop - it was the best first job! By reducing images into greyscale, it can make the shapes and patterns stand out and become clearer. And lets be honest it also saves time.

At this point I was still toying with the idea of adding text, to the design. I love some of the phrases of Christmas carols ( I loved being in a choir and singing at lots of Christmas carol concerts when I was at school). But I was also concerned that making phrases the size we needed for the scale of our candle carousel, they would look a bit lost or clumsy. So I parked this, and went with the floral tribute. the next step involved tightening up the line drawings and gleaning the parts of each angel I liked the most and combining them on Illustrator. I then cut and painted some samples, with Jenna so that we could get it just right, and replicate them.

I still feel that there are some good ideas in the “phrase” designs, and I am a sucker for a heraldic or protest banner. But I think they need a little bit more play time. And maybe they are something that I make just for me. It is a bit of a step out of the current LF design catalogue - but then I have to remind myself that these are only rules I make for myself!

This years Christmas Angel reminds me of my niece Olive, she has rich honey coloured hair, and is strongly independent, knows her own mind but is also kind and sensitive, much like her father.

The finished design is lavished with multiple layers of metallic watercolour, because I do love a touch of sparkle, and thats not reserved just for the festive season.

Notes from a Late September Studio

I spent a gorgeous week at the end of August reading “Raising Hare” by Chloe Dalton a beautiful book about rescuing a Leveret in a February storm and the subsequent tales that evolved from their meeting. If you’re in the need for a book, to hunker down with on an Autumnal evening, theres not better choice in my opinion.

The image of a hare in a harvest landscape has been drifting in my minds eye over the past year, and whilst reading Chloe’s delicious descriptions the picture came into sharper focus. Out came the pencil and pens, and a preliminary sketch took shape with some scratchy felt tip details. I love the immediacy of felt tips and the bolder lines they create. Favouring working in a limited colour palette so that shapes and patterns feel more like a printed textile and less like a realistic drawing.

After the first sketch I decided I felt the need to invest a little more time in understanding the form of the hare, and how to render it in my style of line drawing. I love the way you loose a bit of control using a paint brush, it slows you down and you really have to commit to each stroke. I worked using my set of Caran D’ache Goauche paints, that travel to and from work with me, just in case the painting mood strikes. At this point I had no plans for what this design was going to be, I just felt the need to play with the idea.

Still with no grand plan, I quickly sketched up the bones of the design in Illustrator, creating vector paths for the laser cutter to follow. I wanted to explore painting the hare in finer detail again, but also work on the proportions of the landscape. I created two pieces on the laser cutter, one with the hare in the foreground, and one with the landscape in the background.

The pieces travelled home with me, and I spent a warm afternoon painting whilst waiting for a water meter to be installed. I really enjoyed having no distractions and playing with colour and pattern. Letting my mind wander and think about how this image can evolve

This is the finished piece for now, but some seeds of ideas have been sown. And I’m excitedly waiting for the first of those to come into fruition. I can’t wait to share that with you in the lead up to Christmas. But it has also gotten me thinking about more three dimensional pieces, storytelling the animal encounters I have on my daily walks with Ned.

Speaking of creature encounters, I still vividly remember my first meeting with a Hare, less than 18 months ago. Whilst seeking a patch of wild garlic, I stumbled across an abundance of it, in a little copse less than a mile from my house. And whilst I was crouched, I turned to see a Hare race past me less than 2 metres away. To say it was incredible, doesn’t really do it justice, it felt like an out of body experience. And I feel very lucky to have witnessed it.

The touching descriptions and relationships formed in “Raising Hare” only further confirm this animals majestic character in my mind. I was dismayed to learn that the Hare is the only animal that doesn’t have a close season for hunting in the UK. Meaning there is no reprieve for them being hunted for Sport during the period of time that they are bearing or rearing young. Chloe Dalton is leading the charge and petitioning government to change the legislation and protect hares. If you would like to sign the petition you can do so here : https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/724795

Foraging for Wreaths

The humble wreath was my first ever Lily Faith product. I had a garden which used to belong to the head gardener of Knightshayes so when I inherited it, it was abundant with beauty - there was always something flowering. I would collect twigs and sprigs of various foliage, make paper mache birds, paint the inside of egg boxes, and jumble them together to create window displays for Toast, a lovely cafe on Honiton High Street where I worked.

They’ve come along way since then, but I will always have fondness for these originals as they’ve brought me here.

Nowadays I forage along hedgerows and in the woods, I have a different garden that didn’t belong to a head gardener (it’s becoming beautiful though!) and I have plenty of friends who keep me stocked up with seasonal offerings.

I always try and keep a regular supply of Nigella and Poppy Heads. Dried Meadowsweet is a favourite and now is the perfect time to collect it. I’m conscious of only foraging a small quantity at a time, because the birds and the wildlife need it more than I do.

Ladies Mantle & Lemonbalm are also popular - lemonbalm especially is abundant at the moment. Many days arriving at the studio I discover bunches of picked goodies from friends - they know my love language…

Each wreath takes just a pinching of each dried piece of flower or foliage so the collections do go a long way, and means that every wreath, no matter whereabouts it ends up in the world, has a little piece of Devon hedgerow nestled in it.

Notes from the Studio - June

A little snippet of something I’ve been working on, it all started with a drawing that I did for my Ma’s 70th birthday, back in March. I wanted to create her an extra special keepsake card, and had all of these fancy ideas for a laser cut concertina card. Inspired by ones that I love by Mark Hearld that I have dotted around the studio, that are published by Art Angels and I purchase from Lizzie in Lantic Gallery, Tiverton.

The drawing started with a quick sketch, combining some of my Ma’s favourite Spring time things, like Primroses and Tulips. But I also wanted to bring in her love of a still life composition, from teaching hundreds of students the finer points of Cezanne and Picasso’s over the years. Ma was my art teacher as well as many others in her 30 year history of teaching in our local secondary school. Below is a little peak at her finished birthday card. which then sparked another idea.

My Ma’s three dimensional birthday card for her 70th birthday.

Ideas sometimes rattle around and ruminate for a while. I can see what I want it to be, without being to fully seize it yet - it can be a hard one to explain. At this point, I quite often pull together some inspiration ideas, and start thinking about a colour palette, this can help it settle and come into land.

Each design or idea, quite often has multiple drawings, and with each one the image becomes more refined, the lines more fluid, and everything feels more intentional. It’s like the hand and brain are in full communion, they both know the score - it just needed time and practice.

So there you have it, a little snapshot of what has been on my desk recently, the full new design will be released in early July, at the Exeter Craft Festival on the Cathedral Green. 3-5th July. If you’re local, it would be lovely to see you, and yes I’m taking my sketchbook.

Egg Painting for Ostara

Otherwise known as Ostara, this beautiful festival celebrates the awakening of nature, the return of the light, and the promise of new life. 

There are many traditions associated with Ostara including planting seeds, spending time outside or joining friends for an Equinox feast, but I wanted to indulge my love of painting to decorate some delicate quails eggs.

In case you’d like to join me in this mindful craft, I’ve given instructions below. Of course, you can tailor them to suit your preferred eggs (real or not) and whatever paints or art supplies you have at home!

A collection of the materials used to paint my Ostara eggs, my favourite brushes a number 8 and a number 4 for details, and some gouache paint.

Ostara Egg Painting

🪺 Add a base coat on the eggs first to give you a surface to work on, otherwise they can be a bit shiny. We used some emulsion paint from a tester pot but acrylic would also work. This could be coloured paint but we quite like a washy layer to give depth.

🪺 Then add a wash of watercolour, gouache or acrylic for a nice pastel hue, and let dry.

🪺 Time to bring magic with your design. Use a fine brush for the paint work; we used a no.4 round brush. Paint some foliage, patterns, flowers - it’s your choice. We used quite pigment dense paint at this point to make the design stand out and pop.

The eggs have been primed with a base coat of watered down emulsion paint, before having a wash of watercolour or gouache paint to give them a pastel hue.
Next up, is the details using a number 4 brush, we used pigment rich gouache paint, for a punchy colour contrast and to make the details pop
These little Quails eggs have been pre blown and painted with emulsion wash. And now have a pastel watercolour wash to give them a pop of colour, ready for the magic to begin.
There are endless options for designs, we went with a Forget Me Not design because they have just started appearing in the garden.

Hints & Tips

The smaller the egg, the trickier it is to paint…

For decorating you can use felt tips if it is a little easier to control. Just definitely base coat your eggs otherwise it will slip off

Build a little bridge with your fingers. With one hand holding the egg, use the little finger of your painting hand to rest against your egg-painting hand for some extra stability

There are some amazing resources online for blowing your own eggs

We sourced our quails eggs from a floristry supply shop, you can find the ones we used here

Do let me know if this has inspired you to paint your own Eggs for Ostara, I’d love to see your creations.

Making Hay

Although the sun shine is a little intermittent in this corner of Devon, we are still making plans and laying store for the days ahead. We haven’t had endless days of warmth, but there’s still an abundance of foliage to forage for the studio. On each and every walk, we bring back a handful of greenery to hang in boughs, to slowly dry and be ready for wreathing.

Every walk is a moment to take stock and store away foliage finds for the next season, which happens to be the season of the wreath, or that’s how we see it in the studio. Each bunch a small curation of the hedgerow, carefully collected, never over picking and always adding seed heads from our own gardens. A snapshot of a walk and a moment in our day, always with Ned at my feet and with future compositions in mind. With the growing season slowing, we are enjoying the changes in colour and texture, but feeling the need to make haste with our Autumnal hoard.

And as much as we forage, we also like to purchase a few speciality seed heads to mix in when our hero finds are dwindling. This season we are pleased to have made friends with Stafford the Flower Man at South Molton and have been pillaging his dried stores. Less flowers miles, and it’s really lovely to hand pick all of our collection.

Season of the Stag

And with that we roll into Autumn

A photograph from a recent walk at North Hill Woods, a Woodland Trust woods between Tiverton and Crediton. Gifted to the Charity by Christopher Robin, the son of A.A Milne.

As we steadily race through October, I feel we move into the season of the Exmoor Red Deer and in particular the Stag. When I was a kid, one of the highlights of the returning to routine after the freedom of Summer, were spontaneous after school adventures. We would pile into my Mum’s car, with extra layers for the evening ahead and take a windy road out of Tiverton out to the moor. Stopping to pick up Fish and Chips, we’d park up by a bridge over a ford still dappled in shade by the surrounding low hanging beech trees. Eating our meal in the turning sun light and having a potter around in the stream. As the early evening set in we’d head further into the wooded valleys, pile on our layers and explore with the windows rolled down, hoping to hear the Stags bellowing in the distance. If you’ve never heard male deer rutting, then believe me when I say it is a haunting call, primordial and atmospheric in the advancing gloom. When we could hear them loudly, we would stop the car, and shine a torch into the heath and scrubland and watch them shout and battle out for victory over a herd of female deer. Enthralling and terrifying, a true display of natures might. Those Stags are the truest brutal beasts of the Moor’s, but they cut a distinctly majestic silhouette too. Forever etched in my mind, it felt time to go bring the Red Stag into the Lily Faith folde.

Back in the Studio

Inspirational images for the Winter creatures and the preliminary sketch for the Exmoor Red Stag.

Each creature starts with putting pen to paper, creating a series of sketches that start to get a feel for the form of the animal and their silhouette. It is important to get the right stance, because the design once cut will be used across all of my products and not altered for each individual purpose. It will need to be heading in the right direction on the candle carousel, and also scale across from the mini pin to the wreath and plant pot companions. Once I have my preliminary sketches, I simply photograph them with my iPad Pro and then work them into cutting files using my Apple Pencil and the joys of software Adobe Illustrator. Once saved and transferred over to an ancient PC laptop, they are ready to be cut on Big Suze my laser cutter. I will tell you more about her and the rest of the process in another Blog.

Each Stag is hand painted with a series of four layers. Starting with the dark brown toned Gouache to give the illusion of muscle and might. This is followed by gilding the antlers with a rich antique gold watercolour paint, and finished off with highlights and shadows using black Indian Ink and white chalk pen. I am delighted with the striking, yet simple Stag. I could see them skulking in the heath, and striding majestically along hill tops.

Christmas Folklore Angels

Hello from a very Autumnal hued Devon

And welcome to the launch of this years Christmas collection, I love to create a group of products fresh for the festive season, and the process generally starts in July, but with preliminary sketches sometimes started over the previous Christmas. Its always a treat in the slow days in between Christmas and New Year to pick up pen and paper and play with ideas swirling around. After the frenzy of the days, weeks and months leading up to the Solstice, when I usually down tools and shut the door on the studio - there is usually a bit of a creative itch that needs to be scratched. And whilst the house is looking festive, its good to put some ideas down on paper and flex the drawing muscles, after many, many paint days.

The Folklore Angels were originally designed last Christmas, with a few tweaks along the way, and only recently have they had their printed and painted details finalised. And that is what I inherently love about these pieces, I have had time to sit with them, and feel that they are the best that I can create for this coming season. So with out further a do, I hope you love them too! I hope that you enjoy them in your own home, or that you gift them to your loved ones. And that the quality of the materials mean that they can become part of your Christmas traditions for this year, and many more to come. Each piece is crafted from UK sourced FSC Birch Plywood and MDF. The MDF is a byproduct of the wood industry and has a lower use of formaldehyde glues, to make it safer for the environment but also for laser cutting. I work using water based inks, for easy clean up in the studio, a safer working environment for me, and kinder on our natural world. This ethos is incredibly important throughout my whole business, I don’t want to create items that perpetuate waste and harm the planet, I want to make things to be kept, savoured and loved.

Stocking Fillers and Gifts Under £15

Looking for some small gifts for the bird lover in your life, or are you stuck with the ornithologist for secret Santa (I appreciate that’s pretty niche, but there are lots of them out there!) Here are a selection of small gifts for this festive season and beyond - that won’t break the bank. All hand painted, and made in the South West, using as many recycled materials as possible, and always packaged in a recyclable fashion. 

Tasselled Decorations £12 - 16

Add some festive for the treats and home to your basket, or gift just one extra special Christmas present to be seen every year. These intricate decorations, come adorned with hand painted gouache and metallic ink details, and lavishly finished with some decadent hued tassels. Choose from a whole host of garden birds, and some more Yule tide favourites.

Small Wreaths £12

These little beauties, come in a variety of British garden birds, not just the nations favourite, Mr Robin. Hand made in my Devon studio, the seed heads and foliage are a seasonally changing mixture gathered and foraged from mine and my Ma’s gardens, as well as hedgerows on my morning walks with Bryn. They are presented in a small hand printed kraft box, which post easily as a large letter. Alternatively, ask for them to gift wrapped, and I will give them a festive flourish and can post straight to your intended recipient.

Plant Pot Birds £7.50 per pair

The perfect house plant accessory - because house plants do need accessorising . . Honest.! Build your very own indoor aviary amongst the fronds and foliage. Choose between a whole host of garden birds, and creating nest pairs, or a mix and match to mimic your garden bird feeder. A lovely secret Santa gift using recycled materials throughout.

Mini Pins £4.75 - lots to choose from . . 

The latest addition to the Lily Faith family, these furry and feathered friends are amassing on my workbench as we speak, ready to grace lapels throughout the land. Choose from all the garden birds in my collection, as well my new bounding squirrel and my firm favourite the leaping hare.

Paper goods £2.75 - £4.50

There are the whole host of paper goods and pencils to add to your stockings this Christmas. The postcard set for £4.50 feature reproductions of my laser engraved illustrations of 5 different birds.

So there you have a small selection of gifts for Under £15 - all hand painted and handmade uniquely for you.

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