Probably my favorite part of running What You Sow is choosing the items to sell in the shop, and it’s incredible when I get the chance to stock the work of an artist I’ve been following for quite some time.
Lucy Auge describes herself as a designer, illustrator and dedicated vegetable grower, so you can tell why I like her. She uses her website to showcase her artwork, fabric design, illustration and ceramics and I can recommend you add it to your blog reader today. She is always engaged in some sort of crafty endeavour and frequently shares behind-the-scenes glimpses via her instagram account.
I’m delighted that we are now stocking two items of Lucy’s work at What You Sow; the Monstera Screen Print and the Monstera screen printed notebook.
These simple but striking images use 3 colours and represent the wonderful shape of the familiar “Swiss Cheese Plant” leaves.The work is hand screen printed by Lucy onto stock well cartridge paper.
To celebrate, Lucy has generously donated one of her prints for us to give away to onw lucky individual on instagram. You just need to follow What You Sow, repost the image then tag @whatyousow and #whatyousowparty to enter.
Lucy is also taking part in our first birthday celebrations with a wonderful idea for decorating a party with your own lino cut autumn leaves.
So check out her work, enter our giveaway and follow Lucy’s instructions below to make your own mini work of art:
My work is built around various skills I have learnt or taught myself, from bloc printing to everyday illustration with felt tip pens.
I love working with mediums that give me instant colour, and I can get what I am thinking onto paper quickly. This is the complete opposite to gardening which is my other passion where you really have to use your imagination when you are planting up a border, what colours will look best together, are the heights ok? And you wait patiently throughout the year for your masterpiece to come into it’s own. My love of gardening and nature is a constant inspiration to my work, but general life as well, presents are usually produce out of the garden or a print I have created from bouquets I collect. So coming up with a garden themed bunting couldn’t be easier. I just needed to look out of my window and saw the changing leaves and thought that is beautiful! Lets bring the outdoors in! I am looking forward to being stocked with What You Sow, it is a beautiful and well thought out shop with already such an amazing range of garden inspired items. I am so happy to become a part of it. Instructions to Bunting. Difficulty: Easy Peasy Kit (all kit can be bought from any art shop)- Lino cutting tool with a number two nib (gives good definition)
- Printing Paint in Colours of autumnal shades Red, Orange, Green, Yellow
- Thickened paper I like to use watercolour paper soaks in the paint nicely.
- Lino one A4 size of lino will be enough
- Rubber Roller
- Newspaper
- Shallow Plastic Tray
- Something with a flat base you can apply pressure to, e.g enamel bowl
- Sewing Machine
2. When you have drawn your leaves onto the lino, cut round each leaf with scissors. This will give you less lino to carve away later . With the lino cutting tool cut away anything you want NOT to have paint on, so this is what will show up white. In my demonstration photo I have cut away the spines of the leaves and jagged up the edges to give the outline more shape. Don’t carve too deep, you don’t want the lino to tear apart.
3. To get the color variation, in the plastic tray (which you will be rolling paint in) dot small amounts of paint around. Then with the rubber roller, roll twice to get just enough paint on the roller. With the newspaper laid out, place your lino cut leaf face up and roll the paint onto it. Not too many times so you don’t mix up the paint too much just enough so every part of the leaf is covered in paint.
4. Place the leaf onto the paper, can be anywhere doesn’t matter as you will be cutting them out once dry.
5. Apply pressure with anything you have with a flat base, all over the leaf. For about 30 seconds and peel back, and voila! you have your first leaf.
6. Repeat the inking up and printing process with your different leaves. You don’t have to wash the leaves in between colours unless you are getting a color you don’t like. Just keep dotting paint into the paint tray and print on. About 30 leaves printed will give you a nice length of bunting.
7. Once dry which usually takes overnight to a day depending how thick the paint was, cut roughly around the leaf, doesn’t have to be accurate if you don’t want it to be. Then with your sewing machine feed your paper leaves through, slightly overlapping each leaf as you push them through. This will join all the leaves together and the stitch through adds to the aesthetic. If you don’t like this approach you can sellotape the leaves together from the back or glue them.
Read the other guest posts for our First Birthday Party on Pinterest.
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