As our lives slowed down last year, we felt very fortunate to be outside as spring turned to summer and we immersed ourselves in watercolour painting and botanical drawing… Fairly effortlessly, the idea behind our new collection – The Garden – started to grow.
The Garden is a collection of hand-drawn wallpaper designs which explore blooming flowers – from cheerful pansies to exotic orchids – as well as the array of insects typically found in the garden. A love for colour is evident throughout this collection – experimenting with an array of hues to achieve different results.
Here’s an insight into three of our new wallpaper designs from The Garden collection…
Our Cleo design features tiny bugs, beetles, dragonflies and butterflies and was inspired by the precision of entomological studies of insects in pen and ink. Elizabeth opted for a simple two-tone effect – setting delicate linear rows of insects against a contrasting hue.
“In the studio I simply wanted to enjoy drawing the insects. The result is a charming and very
useable wallpaper which takes on a different quality and mood depending on the
chosen colourway.”
Elizabeth chose names based on strong women of historical importance – she was inspired by Cleopatra’s iconic status as a powerful Egyptian queen and femme fatale.
- Teal – pure emerald green on taupe
- Sky blue – warm ginger on pale baby blue
- Fresh green – grass green printed on a cream ground
- Marine blue – cornflower on a yellow-cream ground
- Noir – white print on charcoal ground
- Indigo – an inky ground with vibrant pink print
- Fuchsia – hot pink ground with deep blue print
- Ochre – a golden yellow ground with red/pink design
Elizabeth started with delicate botanical illustrations of flowers, seed pods and fruits, before adding in some butterflies and setting them amongst tonal ‘ghost’ outlines of other plants.
Marianne North was a prolific Victorian biologist and botanical artist. North travelled the world in the 1870s and 1880s, making detailed illustrations of the plants she observed in exotic locations. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew opened an exhibition of her work in 1880, and the North Gallery remains open to this day.
“Not only do I love the boldness and brilliance of colour in North’s oil paintings, I’m fascinated by the idea of a woman – in a corset and long skirt – journeying up the Amazon to discover and meticulously document native plants.”
- Botany – fresh green, cornflower blue and rosy red on off-white
- Noir – green against a black ground, reminiscent of an enchanted garden at night
- Lavender – soft mauve and mint, for a pretty vintage effect
- Sky blue – a fresh pale blue ground with blooms picked out in cream and pastel shades
This design began as a series of ornate swooping butterflies in jewel colours. Elizabeth opted to have them flitting over a tonal ground, with the classic floral and acanthus leaf motif of a softly faded damask.
Lady Penrose – widely known as Lee Miller – was an American fashion model, photographer, photojournalist and World War II correspondent.
“I’m intrigued by the facets of Miller’s life. She was fearless in her war-time reportage – documenting concentration camps and capturing rural poverty – but she was also a muse and collaborator of Surrealist artist, Man Ray. My favourite picture of her is in Hitler’s bath – it’s iconic, audacious and provocative.”
- Dark blue – a denim tone overlaid by a stone design
- Sky blue – pale blue against a white and stone ground
- Pink – a soft rose on white
- Taupe – a stone ground with lighter floral print
- Ochre – a sunny yellow ground with lighter floral print
As with The Islands, interior designers can access our entire new collection via a compact style box which includes A4 samples of all designs. To order The Garden as a style box, please email Enquiries@elizabethockford.com
We hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into the new collection – we’ll be introducing more of The Garden in a future article…