Tuesday 18 June 2013

Summer Catalogue

Our New Summer 2013 Catalogue

Apparently, according to the date on my screen, it's British summer time. I would suggest that, on the grounds that I am still wearing a jumper and through the window I see miserable grey skies, the PC screen is lying to me! I can honestly say I have forgotten what the sun looks like and it clearly is October!


Lucky for me however, although it doesn’t look like summertime outside, summer is definitely scattered all over my desk. Today I am working with our Creative Team on the all new TROWBRIDGE Gallery Summer Catalogue and I have page after page of glorious summertime photographs to look through and admire. 

With a whole section devoted to my favourite place, the beach, the catalogue is making me feel warmer already! Crystal blue waters, sun filled skies, lots of boats and aquatic creatures. 

We have certainly held up the impact of our spring catalogue in terms of bold colour and impacting size. 

Amongst the stunning photographs, we have included some beautiful paintings of landscapes by James Wheeler, two fabulous new collections of drawings by Poppy Waddilove and more luxurious textiles from Lucy Claw, our in house textile designer. 


Our summer catalogue really is so exciting and what is even more exciting is there are only a few short weeks before you have the chance to see these fantastic pieces hanging on the walls of our stand in New York.

Until then, download the digital catalogue and absorb the warmth from the incredible photographs taken far away from our grey skies here in London. 

If you see anything in the catalogue that grabs your attention, which I dare say you will, then please do give our sales team a call, they are happy to answer any questions you may have.

I hope you enjoy looking through it and I hope it brightens your day should you too be stuck in gloomy weather.

Charlee



Thursday 13 June 2013

Henri Matisse London Exhibition

 The Late Lithographs

“Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.” Henri Matisse.

I am delighted to share with you the details of our Henri Matisse Exhibition at our London Gallery on Kings Road in Chelsea.

We are exhibiting the original lithographs from the 1954 edition of Henri Matisses work in our bespoke and handmade frames. These pieces are not later reproductions and should be not confused with modern posters and we are so proud to be able to offer these to our clients. Each lithograph is Signed in Plate and a Certificate of Authenticity accompanies each piece.

Henri Matisse became one of the world’s most recognisable painters of the 20th century completely by accident. Whilst convalescing from appendicitis his mother gave him his first set of paints to while away his time. 

His Blue Nudes series, part of this exhibition, features prime examples of this technique he called "painting with scissors"; they demonstrate the ability to bring his eye for colour and geometry to a new medium of utter simplicity, but with playful and delightful power. 

"Instead of drawing an outline and filling in the colour I am drawing directly in colour," he said. 

Our London team, Ellena, Philippa and Jenni will be hosting our Matisse exhibition.

Opening this Thursday, 13th June running until Thursday 11th July. 

At TROWBRIDGE Gallery
555 Kings Road, London,
SW6 2EB

London Gallery opening hours are:

Monday-Friday: 9.30 - 6.00
Saturday: 10.00 - 5.30
Sunday: 11.00 - 5.00

If you can't make it to London you can view the Exhibition online: Click Here

We hope to see you there.



Charlee

Thursday 28 March 2013

Day to day inspiration

Over the weekend I was accused of being ‘in a bubble’ based on my lack of observation of the world around me. The reasoning being apparently I always answer a question that starts with ‘did you see’ with ‘No’. It is true, I don’t notice much when I am rushing around trying to fit everything into my days but that’s life isn’t it?

Not for E.Lawrenson, our most recent artist collaboration who gets so much of her inspiration from the day to day observations she’s makes. Manmade and natural form, she looks for inspiration for her two styles of art as part of her daily life. Her styles are irregular drawn shapes, usually taken from the rural landscape near her home in Holmfirth, or the more hard edged geometric images which stem from her manmade observations. 

She was born in Yorkshire where she continues to live and work as a printmaker from her home studio near Holmfirth. 



Gaining a MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 1998 and winning several awards for her work, she has now been a printmaker for over ten years. 

Using the screen printing process, the artist achieves smooth, flat and crisp images, exploring shape and form through the layering of colours, textures and painterly marks.

Her works is based around repetition, forming patterns, and using lines, stripes and hand drawn textures to add interest. 

Below is an extract from an Interview with E. Lawrenson from last year which illustrates beautifully the importance of observation in her life for the pieces she creates. 

“I am a printmaker, using only the screen printing process at the moment. I make abstract prints inspired by anything and everything around me. I notice unusual shapes, patterns and colours then try to make some sort of order out of them back in my studio. I can take shapes and images from almost anywhere and am constantly scanning as I go about my day. Deciding what is worthy of noting, or drawing is sometimes a struggle. If I’m lacking stimulus or feel overwhelmed by all the stuff in my sketchbooks I’ll go out for a walk with my dog in the hills or by the river and absorb colours, textures and clear my head. 

I have two main styles of working; one is the more hard edged geometric or linear style and the other, the more fluid abstract shapes and organic work. 

I tend to focus back to nature and the rural landscape when I find myself going off on tangents. It makes me channel into an area I find calming and makes me work at a slower pace. I find the organic prints are the most beautiful. They have softer lines and curves. These also tend to be the prints with the least colours, so never seem to go wrong.” 
I am pleased to be able to give you some snippets about this new addition to TROWBRIDGE and I am sure that most of you, either our well established clients or those of you new to our Blog and our website are now able to see why we are so glad to be able to offer these pieces. 

After seeing her work and where the ideas come from, I am going to make a much more conscious effort to keep my eyes peeled, clearly I have been missing things! 



Charlee

Wednesday 27 March 2013

De Bry Flower Wall

Well the weather is not going to oblige in giving in to spring any time soon, but the TROWBRIDGE design studio are trying to entice it in by producing an awe-inspiring collection of beautifully classic florals. I know ‘awe-inspiring is a bit of a cliché but this collection really does deserve a cheesy descriptive due to its wow factor.


In stark contrast to our Statement Pieces we introduced you to recently, this is a beautifully petite collection that in its entirety can have just as much impact.

The De Bry Flower Wall is easily our biggest, purposely designed collection; perfect for that vast empty space you’ve been looking for inspiration for. 

We’ve taken forty floral favourites, from the classic daffodil, iris and rose to the more exotic passion flower, lily and cactus to create a truly impressive statement ideally sized for that blank wall above your sofa. 

The full complement of forty pieces, framed in an elegantly simple, distressed gold frame, made in-house by our frame makers, measures 89 x 78” (or 226 x 198cm for our metric friends) and should fill any space needing an injection of fresh spring colour. 

If your space is more compact and bijou, or you need just blue or red florals, each piece is available individually measuring 10 ½ x 15” (27 x 38cm). 

So, if you’re project calls for that botanical finishing touch, be it a luxuriously over-sized family room or petite powder room, this collection should fit the bill. 

If you'd like to find out more please contact your Sales rep or send us a message from our contact page.

Have fun deciding on your favourite – I have too many already!




Kelly

Friday 22 March 2013

Weather for a good book

Having read the UKs forecast for the coldest March weekend for fifty years, it looks like my excited words for the onset of Spring were a little premature!

Back to hot chocolate and a good book for me this weekend, I have a couple from my local library to get lost in so the snow can do as it pleases. 

There is something about a library book and generally books that are a little over thumbed, it makes the stories within them feel more real. Perhaps it’s the faint dusky smell or the yellow edging of the pages, it all provokes my imagination. 




TROWBRIDGE artist Charlotte Morgan uses her imagination when handling a story book too. She is giving new life and some incredible colour to vintage book covers by turning them into works of art. Charlotte's collections of individually hand painted book covers focus on groups of wildlife, sea creatures and domestic animals in all there are more than 70 images and colour combinations to choose from. Dolphins and turtles to lions and bears to every mans best friend, the loyal pet dog. Taking a well-read story book, she first creates texture and movement by sponging different colours over the entire book cover. She then paints the outline of the animal or sea creature with a complementary colour. Every cover has touches which give character and personality to the animal and because each one is hand drawn and painted no two are exactly alike. 

You can see Charlotte at work in her studio creating these wonderful individual pieces in this video:


Hope you have a great weekend,



Charlee

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Spring

It is a general consensus here at TROWBRIDGE that we could all do with the summer arriving, sooner rather than later. Today gives us a glimmer of hope as it is the first day of Spring and although we haven’t had any blue skies, it at least has warmed a little since last week’s snow.

I love this time of year. The evenings get lighter, the air is warm and my long weekend walks shift from being a muddy ice trek to just ambling through the woods taking in all the sights and smells of a new season. I am already noticing the wild flowers peeping through the grasses amongst the trees which are also starting to turn. Add lambs bouncing around the fields and you have my perfect Spring image.

Our new Agapathus Wood collection by the ever wonderful Amanada Ross also takes hold of the spirit of spring and illustrates it beautifully.



These exquisite purple and blue wild flower prints by the English artist are derived from her inspiration of the countryside around her. The life-like quality of her work is achieved through printing directly from cuttings of her carefully selected flowers.

Amanda uses inks and a variety of templates made from the cuttings and transfers these images onto fabrics. Because each piece is unique, the resulting collections evoke the many faces of nature; from structured, ordered, simplicity to wild chaos.  The Agapanthus Wood collection has a feel of wild chaos, typical of the countryside in spring.

TROWBRIDGE prints this collection on Somerset Velvet fine art watercolour paper and the series of 4 fine art giclee reproductions of her original works are of a Limited Edition of 295, each one is signed by Amanda herself.



Amanda’s collection of four Blue Garden pieces and four Taupe Allium are also stunningly detailed and make wonderful additions to the TROWBRIDGE Botanical collection.



I hope that looking at these pretty floral images has sufficiently helped you move out of the winter mind set, it has me.



Charlee

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Urban Inspiration

Last week I introduced you to our new Spring 2013 catalogue – I hope you have enjoyed thumbing through our new collections, exploring our brand new triptychs and fantastic statement pieces, and finding some treasures that you hope to use in your upcoming projects.

Martin Trowbridge is always attracted to an image with a story and we find that it’s always easier to sell your vision to your client if you have that little added something about the piece that they can relate to; be it the story of the photographer or designer who created the piece, the reason why a piece was drawn in a certain way or the theory behind the design of a collection. 

One such story comes straight from the bosom of the TROWBRIDGE family. 



Lucy Claw joined us last summer as a new member of our production team. Since she graduated in 2004 Lucy has been putting her degree in Textile and Surface Design to great use as a freelance designer producing fashion and interior works that have sold worldwide. Lucy is inspired by the urban world and her contemporary textiles begin life as sketches of her environment. Lucy has developed her own unique style of embellishment which sees her applying glossy textures, beautiful appliqué and hand-embroidered stitching to her wool and cashmere designs. 



TROWBRIDGE is very proud to present Lucy as our newest in-house textile designer and her beautiful leaf designs promise to be a great new addition to our successful botanical textile collection.

Lucy’s first collection for TROWBRIDGE is this restful set of four sycamore leaf designs in cool steel blue. Lucy has used lush velvets, felts and silks, embellishing them with appliqué and precise hand-embroidery. She has cleverly given depth to the piece by applying glossy textures to those leaves in the distance.

Lucy has promised us two further collections which I will be sure to show you as soon as they arrive.

Hope you enjoy her work,

Kelly