Alongside my prints and cards I produce from my own ideas and designs I am increasingly asked to work on commissions. I can only tell you about them here on my blog, once the client has launched/printed/published their project; I keep an eye on their web sites to see if I spot that my work has gone public.
Well, today I noticed that a lovely project I worked on just before Christmas was on the Rathfinny Estate web site, I was asked to supply decorative illustrations for a wonderful music festival they have planned for this June, more info here.
This is a spread from the festival programme.
I worked with oboist Emily Pailthorpe of the London Conchord Ensemble to visualise and bring to life the images she had in mind, inspired by the music which all has links to the sea and also to the art of the Bloomsbury group as seen at Charleston, which is near the Rathfinny Estate. She had in mind something like a 1930's art textile design, it needed to include a whale, a sail boat, a Venetian gondola, grape vines and waves . . . one wave had to be morphing into a violin's scroll.
I suggested creating a single image which could be cropped and taken apart, a bit like a jigsaw of the images Emily had in mind. Sam, the designer working on the event publicity supplied a pdf template as a guide for where the different elements needed to fit.
I'd set myself a tricky challenge! But it came together and this is the result . . .
If you live down on the Sussex coast near Alfriston, look out for the posters and publicity, maybe you will be lucky to go along to 'A Sumptuous Weekend Festival of Chamber Music and Wine in a Sussex Vineyard' – doesn't that sound a particularly splendid event?!
This wasn't part of the original brief, but I love how the designers have used part of my illustration for the sea in this map of how to find the Rathfinny Estate.
I haven't yet visited the vineyard but I hope to in the near future. And it was really interesting to work with Emily and to transfer her 'sound pictures' into a linocut.
Celia
xx
