Inspiration from the tropics

Happy sunny Sunday – and sorry for the recent silence. I've been lucky enough to be on holiday in hot, tropical far-off places. But now I'm back in Blighty, to gorgeous (not to mention tan-sustaining) weather, feeling refreshed, renewed and full of inspiration.

While I was away, I revived my obsession with tropical foliage and am determined to get as much of it as is possible in a semi-shady London garden. Sadly, my quest for the gorgeously fragrant frangipani trees of my dreams has been fruitless, and I fear the search for exotic plants suitable for the southern hemisphere is going to be tough (though when I've spoken to some clever garden-y friends and got their tips, I'll share them). It's a small start, but I'm very happy with the mini magnolia tree I planted in the winter, which has sprung into life during our recent mini heatwave. I searched hard for one that didn't need a proper flower bed and lots of growing space, as I only had a big pot on offer – and if you, like my friend Giles, are also keen on a magnolia that you can grow in a container for a balcony, patio or front doorstep, check out this miniature pink beauty from Van Meuwen, which costs just £17.95 and grows to a manageable 150cm.

Meanwhile, here are some nice jungle-y, planty, flowery things you don't even need a garden for...

1. Cotton Kaveri bedding, designed by artist Rebekah Maysles, who was inspired by a trip to the south of India. Anthropologie, from £38

2. This luscious Green Flower Oilcloth, is one of the new designs at Viva La Frida. Big, bold flowers (the largest white flower measures 20cm square), and just £12 per square metre. Use it as a tablecloth to bring the tropics into your kitchen, or stretch it like a canvas and hang it on a wall. I think it'd look great in a bathroom.

3. This pretty vintage garden print, from The OK Corral is far from tropical – instead it's packed with bluebells. Very English. And very lovely. The artist is Beatrice Parsons (1860-1955) and this 24.5cm x 32cm painting, in its original wooden frame, is a snip at just £12.

4. Good old B&Q. I really like this environmentally friendly wallpaper, which is printed on 100% FSC paper using water based inks. It'd look lovely livening up a wall in a hall or along a staircase, I think. Best of all, it's just £12.98 per 10m roll. (And look out for this wallpaper in next Sunday's green-themed Insider column in the New Review. This week's, in case you're interested, is all about how to pimp your stairs.)

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Inspiration from the tropics

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More affordable art

Yesterday I blogged about some gorgeous Panda-based prints for a child's room from A Little Bit of Art. Just after I'd posted it, I couldn't resist a bit more window shopping on the site and dug out a few more goodies. I wouldn't usually blog about the same shop or site twice in a row – but there was just so much more there and I needed to justify the very long time I spent thinking, "want that"... "want that"... "want that"...

For the small dog in my life, I had to start with this super sweet and slightly kitsch canine covered number under the banner Collection of Joy (£20, A3 size, open edition digital print).




And it's not only prints for walls that the shop sells. LOVE this plate! (It's £30 and 250mm diameter.) There are some tea-towels and other illustrated accessories for sale on the site too.




And these fishing boats are just great, aren't they? By artist Hanna Melin, it costs £60.




And this is just brilliant. Love the dayglo tinge. It's by Robert Rubbish, costs £50 (48cm x 64cm, signed, limited edition screenprint of 200). I really want it.

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PYMCA prints, Faris Badwan, Lawrence Watson - and loads more affordable art at the Book Club

Live in London? Like art? Like art you can afford? Looking for a rather special Christmas present or two...? Then check out the art, prints, posters and arty/printy books sale happening at The Book Club in Shoreditch on Wednesday 15 December.


The quirky bar, which launched last year, has been hosting all sorts of cultural events over the last 12 months – and the images available in this Christmas sale are their favourites from the art and photography exhibitions they've hosted. There will be DJs to perk up your ears while you browse and, of course, it's a bar – so a festive tipple to encourage you to be reckless with the credit card. 


These images (by Faris Badwan, left, PYMCA, the youth culture photo agency, below, and music photographer Lawrence Watson, top, who should all be hanging around on the night) are just a tiny taster of what will be on offer - and it is for one night only so put it in your diary.  



The damage? So un-damage-y: prices from £30 for a Faris Badwan screen print (limited editions from £70); PYMCA posters are £5-10, prints between £50-150. Sonic Edition prints are £69 but they have  £5 posters, and there are books – usually £20 – doing some crazy buy-one-get-one-free and print + free book offers.


The Book Club

100 Leonard Street
London EC2A 4RH
6pm – 12am
FREE ENTRY

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PYMCA prints, Faris Badwan, Lawrence Watson - and loads more affordable art at the Book Club

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Kate Moross and co. at Outline Editions (yep, more affordable art)

Kate Moross, David Foldvari, Lizzie Finn, Marcus James, Helicar & Lewis... just some of the exciting fresh names in illustration currently gracing the walls of the new Outline Editions pop-up gallery/online shop for graphic artists.

I went to the wildlife-themed launch of the new pop-up in Soho last week - where I fell in love with this insane-could-be-menacing print (top) by the artist, Claire Scully (£85 for an A4, limited edition print).

She explained her inspiration for the work came from the urban surrounds of the house in London that she grew up in. Like me, she loves the city she grew up in and sees nature amid the concrete, brutalist architecture - and loves the contrast. Her sister, she said, is a furniture designer, and made her a series of bird feeders in the shape of the local tower blocks to hang in the garden and by the windows - they were seized upon by the squirrels. She used the scenes she observed from her bedroom window to inspire this - among other - works.

As some readers may know, I'm having a few squirrel issues. Love them scampering through the garden, with its tower block backdrop; don't love them living in my roof and galloping and gnawing into my dreams. Somehow this image captures my ambivalent relationship with them.


Check out some of the other interesting, fresh talent in the online shop, or at the gallery - open until 31 Jan.

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Elphick's online art shop

It's a day of discovering lovely new things... Isn't this the sort of shop you want to just rush into?

Elphick's, in east London's Columbia Road, run by the artist Sharon Elphick (you can see her flowers in a vase picture in the window) is packed with the owner's well-chosen collection of art, including her own - and at very affordable prices. I'd heard about the shop but have never been - but the online version is almost as exciting. There's so much great stuff I don't know quite where to start. Without doing an inventory of the entire catalogue, I'll attempt to self-edit and pick out a few highlights you might like the look of. But do check out the shop for yourself - there's a lot going on.



I really like this print, called Tuba, by Helen Lang aka Madamsange. It reminds me a bit of one of my favourite children's books, Patrick, by Quentin Blake, which has equally joyous visions of flowers growing where you least expect them, and shoelaces turning into giant ribbons. But Helen's boxy figure feels much more Fifites/early Sixties than the fluid, 1969-published lines of Blake. The print measures 30x40cm and costs £55. See more of Helen's work at her Wet Paint website.


Not sure if Russell Loughlan's work is still at Elphick's but it had its debut there last year. And I like his work so much I thought I'd include it - plus a link to his site, above, just in case. I know Russell, but hadn't seen his work until it appeared at Tales from a Park Bench, a special pop-up shop/ performance art/writer-y thingy I took part in. But back to Russell, who combines illustration, found imagery, vintage postcards, antique maps and pop culture. Elphick's were selling them in recycled frames for £145 each.





I tried hard not to feature one of Sharon Elphick's lovely bird artworks and picked this postcard montage instead (are those John Hinde cards?). A woman after my own heart, not only does she cherish old postcards, but seems to share my love for bird ephemera. (In my house, from where I'm sitting right now: I can see one money-box - a 1970s brown owl; one lamp - one of Ed Carpenter's pigeon lights; a sticky-in-the-ground wooden garden ornament (from Brazil) and my Ikea outdoor bird fairy lights.) Wish You Were Here, at her more expensive end, is £350.




I love Charley Harper, as old-school followers will know. But I've struggled to find prints of his work - in desperation I bought a Harper memory card game from the Saatchi Gallery shop and framed the whole pack of little squares. I like it - but I also like this print, which is one of about ten that Elphick's is selling - it's £40. And I also now know why I had struggled to find Harper prints before - Elphick's is the only place licensed to sell them.

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Affordable Art Fair in actually affordable shocker

It's a shocker to me, anyway. I can't believe I've never been to this weekend's Affordable Art Fair (22-24 October) in south London's Battersea Park. It's only round the corner. No excuse. Except I think I've always thought - yeah, but it's not really affordable, is it?

When my parents bought a huge, stunning oil painting of a couple snatching a secret moment in a bar a few years ago, I thought perhaps I should give it a go. Then they told me how much they'd paid for it - the Fair's range is £50-£3000 which is cheap in the art world, but not necessarily in the post-recession world.

But now, rather excitingly, I've just discovered the AAF is part of the Own Art scheme, meaning you can buy an artwork and pay it off in interest-free instalments over 10 months. So, above, this collectable Pam Glew (in the Autumn AAF, her work sold out in one night) works out at just £49 a month. While, above, Rob Ryan - whose work has previously filled the Christmas window display at Liberty and appeared in Vogue - can be snapped up for £200 per month. Get in.

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Posh prints, swish wall stickers and affordable art: part 2

Maybe you can afford some serious one-off pieces of art for your walls. Maybe you can afford one or two. Maybe you're broke and your walls are bare. 


Either way - why not brighten up that blank space you're staring at with one of these tasty bits of design. The second in a series of three... (here's the first). Look out for the final part next Monday...




This sweet retro Swedish print would look cute in a child's bedroom. It costs £20 unframed (70x50cm) and comes from the Pussy Home Boutique. And if you're wondering what kårlek means... like the magic little lozenge this dinky chap is about to swallow, it's something that makes you feel all warm inside.








I've featured Blackpool Beauties before (orignally published in Picture Post in 1955), because I long lusted after them for my bathroom - but then settled on a quartet of water-themed vintage Butlin's photos by John Hinde. Love the lack of faces. This one may yet find itself into another room in the house. It costs £75, print only (10x8 inches) from 55 Max






Love the cool simplicity of this David Hockney 'A Bigger Splash' swimming pool print/exhibition poster. One of the paintings in this 1966-67 California based series, Beverly Hills Housewife, sold for £5.2 million. But this can be yours for just £45 unframed, or £160 framed, from 55 Max.





As far as I can tell, this is the last in a fantastic series of limited edition lyrics-based graphic prints from Art Republic - so if you like it, get hold of it quick... It's from the clever It's Pop It's Art series, and I'm very fond of my 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' one, which I got from Airside. There was a Marvin Gaye one too, but am also tempted by this: "I'm free you're free/I want you to touch me/Come together/As one". Classic. Buy it unframed (70x100cm, inc border) for £150.




The Days Gone By shop has a fantastic selection of vintage comic book covers and pages - including graphics from the Beano, the Dandy and Hotspur magazine (perfect for the big boy in your life). But my favourite is this 1971 Bunty cut-out wardrobe print, I'd love it for my dressing room (ha ha, when I have one that is). Get it as a ready-to-hang canvas print from £95 (for the smaller, 710mm x 508mm size).
 (love the bunty one with cut-out clothes!)

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Posh prints, swish wall stickers and affordable art

Maybe you can afford some serious one-off pieces of art for your walls. Maybe you can afford one or two. Maybe you're broke and your walls are bare. 


Either way - why not brighten up that blank space you're staring at with one of these tasty bits of design. The first in a series of three... 







This retro-style double decker bus print, 50 x 70cm, is just £15 from the V&A shop and designed by Japanese illustrator Takashi Furuya. You can find more of his lovely work at this online shop and, if you can read Japanese, learn about the artist on his personal website. Even if you can't read Japanese, it's a very sweet site and still worth a glance.



This pretty 1880 Yellow Bird print, by the Edward Lear, who is perhaps more famous for his crazy limericks, is quite weeny, at just 20x25cm, but costs just £10 and is one of a series of six from the V&A shop. Random Lear facts (if Wikipedia is to be believed): he was employed by the Zoological Society to draw birds, and briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria.





I want one of these Moose-heads from the Keep Calm Gallery. In fact I might want at least six of them for one big, bare and perplexing wall in the sitting room. I love, love, love them. But I also love the donkey wall sticker that I'll come to next time. And the idea of a whole wall of Penguin Classic postcards (see below), or some more of the garishly brilliant John Hinde prints from the incredible Martin Parr edited Butlin's book that I have just realised I really ought to blog about... But back to the Moose: he's £18, measures 546mm x 349mm and comes hand-printed on brown recycled kraft paper. Not sure what that is but it looks nice. 






Purchase this chirpy poster and When life gives you lemons you'll now know what to do. This uplifting old-school looking print is designed by Douglas Wilson (check out the very chirpy portrait of the typeface-mad artist on his own site: bold outfit!). The posters are hand pressed using an antique wooden type, making each one unique. They're £30 unframed and also come from the Keep Calm Gallery





Got a big wall to fill? Make a gallery of as many Penguin Classics postcards as you can muster (there are 100 in the box) and stick them in post-card sized frames (Ikea's cardboard ones are good for mass framing and don't look like cardboard if you squint - or even if you stand quite close). Or just pick your favourite jacket and stick it in a dinky-sized spot in a more extravagant frame. Staggeringly good value at just £14.99 from the Penguin online shop.

If, like me, the brutalist concrete archictecture of London's Southbank makes you go a bit oooooh, then this limited edition Southbank Centre graphic print by Paul Catherall, which measures £40x80cm, might be worth forking out £180 for. It's a lino-cut print, something Mr Catherall has become rather famous for, and there's also his take on the Hayward Gallery and several others to peruse. For more of Paul's prints, featuring other parts of London (and New York) in colourful and monochrome graphic form try the Paul Catherall website. I love his version of the Barbican Centre.

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