I thoroughly recommend you get down to THE Sydney Christmas popup tomorrow and for the rest of the week.
It’s my Instagram friend James Gordon’s MIXED BUSINESS and I can promise you you’ll find treasures there like nowhere else. Divine and clever paper sculptures which will take your breath away, illustrations, watercolours, jewellery. If there’s a theme, it’s that everything is beautiful! The things this man creates from paper blow my mind!
Long time readers of this blog will know I’m a huge fan of Australian illustrator Megan Hess so I was very excited when she shared her first homewares piece – a fine porcelain vase – with me.
The limited edition piece features illustrations from her Black Feather collection on both sides and as it’s black and white, it’ll go with any interior colour scheme, or indeed flower choice!
By Amy Timbrell
Artwork is by far one of the easiest and most affordable ways to inject new life into your home and add final touches to your living space.
However, whilst most people would love to create an at-home gallery, sadly it is often difficult to find unique and beautiful, quality pieces with the right price tag and people can feel genuinely overwhelmed, not knowing where to start. Cue bright white, blank and boring walls.
It is a question I am often asked by my customers, so here are some of my top tips for choosing, buying and displaying art in your home.
Don’t worry too much about creating your own personal mini-gallery at home. It really is something you should have fun with, afterall it is one of the easiest ways to express yourself and your tastes and style at home, not to mention one of the best ways to inject colour, intrigue and interest into your space. Try to think of purchasing art as a 3-step process: choosing, finding and displaying. When it comes to art there is no right or wrong. You should just go with your gut and to put it simply, just buy what you like and what makes you feel good.
Before you set off on your journey, have a think about your home (or office for that matter). Take a walk through your property and take note of where your eyes fall when you enter the home, walk along the hallway, up the stairs or into a room. These are the key areas where you should be displaying and featuring art.
Everyone’s idea of affordable is different but for the purposes of this post, I’m talking art for under $500 and, in many cases, under $100! All Australian and available to buy online from the comfort of your own home.
These guys, husband and wife duo Jaynie and Nathan Johnson, remain in my top 10 because they continue to produce fantastic affordable prints and wall flags which are always featured by the glossy magazines. They’re also really nice people, and that’s important too!
A small but lovely collection of prints and wall hangings, available to buy online from $49.95. Grab one of their gorgeous Fig & Melon candles while you’re there. Delicious!
These are three of my favourite things: interiors, fashion and illustration. And we all know I’m a big fan of Melbourne illustrator Megan Hess too. So her book, Fashion House, is pretty much the dream!
Have you ever dreamed of living in a house styled by Tom Ford? Do you long for a Parisian suite worthy of Coco Chanel, or perhaps a Riviera escape fit for Grace Kelly? Megan has spent her life imagining and illustrating sumptuous lifestyles and decadent interiors from around the world. Fashion House (clever title, no?) is a lavish collection of her most beautiful rooms, inspired by the fashion elite.
Drawing on her experience creating iconic windows for Bergdorf Goodman in New York, illustrating for labels such as Chanel and Dior, and publications like Vanity Fair and Time, Megan’s combined her love of interior design (she’s married to an architect and I recently blogged her gorgeous home) with her signature illustrations to create a book that both celebrates style and helps you achieve it. From the Fashion Office and Grand Estate, to the Vintage Loft and Paris Salon, she also depicts the rooms of the Fashion Set – from Versace and Dior to Coco Chanel, Pucci and Jimmy Choo.
Just when I thought I really had conquered my cushion habit, along comes Miss Lou Lou, a collaboration between designer Keren Brown of The Brown Trading Co, and fashion illustrator Kerrie Hess.
Talented Kerrie counts Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade, Vogue and Collette Dinnigan among her clients and yes, she’s the sister of fellow illustrator Megan Hess, whose beautiful home you may have seen on this blog before!
Miss Lou Lou jets off to four of Keren’s favourite cities – London (V&A Museum), Paris (Bon Marche), New York (Tiffany & Co.) and Rome (riding a Vespa) in the limited edition, 100% silk cushions with gold plated zippers. Suitable to be framed as art if you wish, they come exquisitely boxed with a numbered, limited edition gift card. Cushions just got fancy!
Today I’m very excited to share with you the gorgeous home of Megan Hess, the stylish illustrator of the Sex and the City book cover and much more.
Illustrating for brands like Tiffany & Co, Chanel, Dior and Laduree, Megan is living her dream. She lives (and works) here, in the roof of a church, with her architect husband Craig Yelland and two young children. There is nothing usual about this four-bedroom home, which is one of the things she loves the most.
“I initially thought the space was completely crazy,” she said. “It was the entire roof of an 18th century church! The location was perfect and it was enormous BUT it was a roof. Craig took photos, scanned them into the computer and started to show me where we would put walls and how it would work (the perks of being married to an architect!). As soon as I saw that I knew it would be perfect.”
They have transformed it into their dream home and have been living there for three years. “Every single inch of it is built around how we like to live and the things we love.” The kids have their own area where they can play, make mess and hang out, and the “parents’ area” is a retreat from it all. “I feel like my pulse goes down the second I walk into that space,” says Megan.
Did you miss out on Fashion Week in Sydney this week? Or, like me, were you lucky enough to take in some shows? Either way, you can find an excuse in there to treat yourself to one of these divine limited edition signed prints by Melbourne illustrator Megan Hess.
Most of the Australian artist’s work is actually sold to America, and her clients include Tiffany & Co, Dior, Chanel, Rolex and Marc Jacobs as well as magazines like Vanity Fair and Time. If you read glossy magazines, you’ve probably seen her drawings numerous times without knowing that talent came from right here in Oz! Or you may have seen her cover illustrations for Candace Bushnell’s books like Sex and the City or Lipstick Jungle. I’m truly blown away by the beauty of her work.