Last summer Springetts Brand Design asked me to create a large linocut illustration to be part of the rebranding of DukesHill, a long established company supplying high quality artisan foods.

In an online meeting I was introduced to the Dukeshill marketing team and together we came up with 'a slice of the Shropshire countryside' which could be used as a wide landscape illustration.

Once everyone was happy with the design I carved it into the lino block.



I used a dark ink (mixed from Prussian Blue and Van Duck Brown which I find easier to work with than Black ink) to ink the block and take proofs on Japanese paper for scanning.



After scanning and editing, my final illustration was supplied as a black and white digital file. The design team used this to create the new branding in a dark teal green colour.



The illustration is printed on DukesHiil's new cardboard delivery boxes, thank you to Springetts Brand Design for the photos.



And details can be used on the DukesHill web site, marketing emails and gift cards.

In spring last year I was asked by Peter, at Windett Design, to produce a linocut illustration for the packaging for Sandringham Estate's lavender products. The design is similar to my Lavender Hare design, but without the hare and with the iconic north-west Norfolk coastal landscape as the background.

The lavender products are now available in the Sandringham Estate shop (not yet in the online shop, hopefully they will be this year)



The design started life as a sketch which after approval by the design team, I carved into the lino block.



I inked the block with a dark colour mixed from Van Dyke Brown and Prussian Blue. I very rarely use black as I find the coloured inks much easier to work with.



The final artwork was going to be digital and in specific 'spot colours', so I needed a clean dark print to scan in black and white (greyscale)



This is the final digital two colour artwork I supplied for the designers to use for the packaging for the six different products made from lavender grown on the Sandringham Estate.

Some of you may have come across Redbubble, an online shop with products decorated with designs from indie artists and designers. I'd had an account for a few years but not got around to uploading any designs and selecting which products to allow them to be printed onto. Just before Christmas I was listening to a favourite podcast and up popped an advert for Redbubble. So, I've experimented with six designs and few products … a travel mug and water bottle, an apron, phone cases and cushions, button badges and even a jigsaw (you can select the size and number of pieces).

To explore more hop over to my Redbubble shop and have a browse

www.redbubble.com/people/celiahartartist

Since 2020 I have been exploring landscape painting. I realised that I wanted to combine my love of walking out in the countryside with my art practice. When you walk through a landscape and take in your surroundings, you are not a camera taking a single snap shot, you are a multi-sensory organism that is part of the landscape you are moving through.

In October 2022 I was lucky to be able to join a group of artists for a day drawing on Orford Ness, a shingle spit island off the Suffolk Coast.



I like to work in 'concertina sketchbooks' which I make from off-cuts of thick cartridge paper.



I often visit Ickworth Park, in November 2022 I combined a walk with an intense hour sketching. I had prepared the paper with tape masking off sections and painting the surface with tinted gesso mixed with a pumice get to give the surface 'bite'.



In December 2022 I spent a night in my camper van next to Bacton beach on the NE coast of Norfolk. It was wild and stormy but the sun briefly came out in the morning and I did a very quick sketch standing by the groynes as the waves crashed onto the shore.



There's nothing like being outside in the landscape to get a feel of its shapes and colours. You can see a couple of short videos of my tips for outdoor sketching in winter part 1 and part 2 over on my Instagram @walkinglookingpainting

Some of you, especially the gardeners among you, may remember that from April 2015 to December 2017 I illustrated Frank Ronan's column on the final page of Gardeners Illustrated Magazine. Each month the editor would email me Frank's words, I would then have about a week to read it and create a linocut illustration. I enjoyed spotting the literary references with which Frank scatters his prose and in response I would sometimes introduce art references into my illustration.



In addition to my fee for the work, I retained the copyright of the artwork and so some of the illustrations have become my most popular greetings card designs, these and the original linocut editions are available from my shop.



I wrote about my working process on my blog PurplePoddedPeas, you can read the blogposts here which include my sketches and thoughts about the linocut designs.