I love painting in a large scale, it’s living every toddler’s dream when you can paint directly onto walls and windows. Painting murals has always been a favourite part of my business, it’s so liberating working on a large scale and see my work come to life in bold swooshes of paint.
I absolutely adore a good independent bookshop and seek them out wherever I am in the world. Here in Wiltshire we are really lucky to have the exquisite White Horse Bookshop in my hometown of Marlborough. It’s an absolute haven for me as not only do they have a fabulous selection of books, (including a wonderful Children’s section complete with bean bags to lounge on and shelves right to the floor for tiny people to browse.) they also have a fantastic art department which is a complete Aladdin’s cave of art and craft supplies, stocked with care by the lovely Edwina. They also have a glorious light filled exhibition space at the back of the shop. All the things I adore under one roof! The shop is an integral part of the community, it’s a hub for art classes, author events and as a central point on the Marlborough Lit Fest trail.
I was lucky enough to create some festive window displays for the shop in December. The shop was celebrating Christmas 2019 with a Nutcracker theme, including a late night shopping evening. The beautiful 16th Century shop has two large bay windows flanking the front door, one for the bookshop, and another displaying the art materials available downstairs.
On the bookshop window I created a traditional theatre scene by painting red velvet curtains with gold tassels and the silhouette of an enraptured audience framing the display of books, with a Nutcracker doll nestled amongst them. On the art window I painted festive fir and holly leaves, from these boughs the characters of the Nutcracker ballet danced across the glass. I exchanged their traditional swords for pencils and paintbrushes to tie them in with the art materials displayed behind them.
Painting out in public can always be a little daunting – but it is ultimately a lot of fun. Standing in the windows painting directly onto the glass on a busy high street as everyone whizzed around doing their Christmas shopping got a lot of attention. People are always keen to see what you are up to, as questions and in my experience are very entusiastic. The theatre of live painting is always a good way to get your brand noticed, especially during a busy time like Christmas, and gives something new to show on social media. Customers love to see something being created traditionally and the display can be completely unique.
I’d already sketched out my plans for each window so that I had a guide to follow, and so that the shop manager, Angus, knew what the final display would look like. There was a lot of freehand work as I needed to tweak my sketches to match the scale and depth of the bay windows and then work back to front so that the design read correctly from the outside – this coupled with the fact that as I was painting on glass I needed to add the detail first needed me to keep some mental dexterity!
I was really pleased with the final windows, and they made an eye catching display – especially when lit up on a cold, dark Winter evening.
A few days after installing the window display I went back to the White Horse Bookshop for their late night shopping evening in early December. The evening was Nutcracker themed, with all the bookshop staff dressed up and an additional discount for customers who had dressed up to co ordinate with the ballet theme.
I bought my art materials and settled myself near the door, offering complimentary ten minute portraits for the customers. The evening was full of festive cheer and customers enjoyed browsing at their leisure while getting into the Christmas spirit with a glass of wine and nibbles.
Lots of lovely customers spent a few minutes chatting to me as they posed for their A5 portrait, it was such fun getting to know to everyone and capturing a quick likeness at speed. I made sure to keep things festive with lots of sparkly gold paint!
It was a lovely touch as in addition to taking home some new books and getting a bit of their Christmas shopping done, customers could also take home a little piece of art to remember the evening and share on social media. I loved seeing people sharing their portraits on their Instagram accounts.
Christmas is always a busy time for me, making sure all my portraits of people and pets are painted in good time for Father Christmas to deliver them. Adding in live illustration events to my diary over the festive season was great fun. I loved getting out and meeting people and sharing my art with them. It was great to chat to people about their what they had planned over the festivities and share a bit of what I do as Charlotte Illustrates, and made for a lovely end to the year.
Where are your favourite indie bookshops? I’d love you to let me know in the comments so that I can find even more wonderful places to visit.
http://www.whitehorsebooks.co.uk/