All posts tagged: art

Nyssa Sharp

Published by Karen Knox

Nyssa Sharp is an artist currently living in Sydney, Australia with Grizzly, her pet bunny. I first came across her work hanging on the wall of a room I spotted on Instagram a few months ago. And since, have been trying to find out more about the piece of art hanging on a wall, that made me instantly stop scrolling. The Girl with the Yellow Skirt It took me a while to find out who this piece was by, but as soon as I discovered it on esme grey designs, it was in the basket and ordered. It’s still available to pre-order by the way for delivery by the end of this month. “A lot of people think that The Girl with the Yellow Skirt is an oil painting, but I made it on my Macbook Pro using a drawing tablet. It is the most important piece I have ever created, and I get the most feedback for it. It is so cool and beautiful to know that people connect with it so strongly.” Papirmass View …

Gallery wall mid century, dark interiors

How to choose art?

Published by Karen Knox

I’m by no means an expert on this, but I wanted to write down what I know. Some of it instinctively and other bits i’ve learned by analysing images of rooms for hours on end, working out why something does and doesn’t work. I’m asked to find art for people all the time and it’s such a difficult thing to make a decision on, on behalf of someone else. But there are certain, more practical things to bear in mind that does help hone down the search. What wall is it going on and what space is there for it? Is that space portrait or landscape? Because you really want your artwork to echo the shape of the wall behind it. Here’s an example for you: This is a pic of a living room, our living room in fact, before we bought it. See how the mirror above the fire is landscape on a portrait wall? Well it doesn’t really work. It’s the wrong orientation but also the wrong scale. Scale is something we’ll get to …

Updating your interiors with Posterlounge

Published by Karen Knox

As you guys will probably know, i’ve been faffing around with our living room gallery wall for a while now. Ya know, since I finally painted all the walls black. Finally black. I liked it, but it wasn’t quite right. Not yet anyway. Luckily, around the same time, Posterlounge got in touch asking if i’d like to work with them on a post. Erm yes please! Yeah, I would. So I jumped onto their site and began the search for new art and artists. Stage 1 of operation ‘Gallery Wall Update’. Still not quite right. The Posterlounge site is BIG! They have A LOT of stuff and the best thing is it’s all super affordable with prices starting from around £6.90 with free delivery. Pretty good eh? ‘WAITING MAGRITTE’ by THE USUAL DESIGNERS Absolutely love the colours. Clouds and faces. Faces and clouds. They get me every time! They have everything you could think of; photography, illustrations, abstract, realism, surrealism, advertising posters, paintings, graphic design, digital art, collage art, typography…. The list is endless, so it took …

Abyss of the Disheartened – My first Instagram Giveaway #loveyourwalls

Published by Karen Knox

It’s no surprise to hear how much art plays a huge part of our home and all of my interiors projects. It’s integral to any room, in fact, I have been known to design an entire room around a single piece. Valspar’s Midtown Magic was chosen for our bedroom walls as a backdrop to The Chinese Girl by Angelique Houtkamp. I also purchase a lot of pieces, having no idea where they’ll end up. I just know I need them somewhere and the place will make itself clear in due course. One such piece was Abyss of the Disheartened IX by Heather Landis. I spotted this around the time me and t’tother half were due to get married. We had a very small, low key wedding, with only 20 people in total, including myself, the groom and our 4 y/o. This picture, for some reason, just made me think about marriage. Don’t know why. But it did. Perhaps it was the dress? Anyway, as we’re not the kind of folk to have our wedding photos up around …

Our trip to MOMA

Published by Karen Knox

Located in midtown Manhattan, the Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929 as an educational institution. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., its founding director always intended the museum to be dedicated to helping people understand and appreciate the visual arts of our time, providing New York with “the greatest museum of modern art in the world.” From an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing, the Museum of Modern Art’s collection has grown to include over 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings, and design objects. Nearly 90 years later its rich and varied collection has established itself as one of the most comprehensive and wide-ranging views into modern art. I just wanted to share with you some of my favourites; some from “famous masters”, some from names you’ll recognise and others from artists i’ve only just been introduced to myself. I hope you enjoy. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the Bruce Conner exhibition, but you can read and see more about it here. Absolutely mesmerised by Munch. As was another …

My 7 from Society 6 – Pt 2

Published by Karen Knox

I wrote a post last November about some new art purchased from Society 6 for chez Making Spaces. As you may already know, our house does not need ANY more art. Any at all. But I seemed to have filled my basket again. It’s one of the downsides of working in interiors, you’re constantly searching for cool stuff for other people and invariably, you find a lot of stuff you’d rather like for yourself. Let me show you what i’ve been finding for projects and ogling for myself… abyss of the disheartened : IX by Heather Landis I have no idea why this reminds me of our wedding day (we didn’t even get our feet wet), but it does. Makes me ponder the whole “relationships” thang. And makes me smile. I like how they’re together, holding hands, but they’re apart. I guess you can interpret it exactly how you want to. Which is why art is so bloody amazing. And important in adding interest to a space. think by LouiJoverArt Yes, another “note to self” print. I need to …

An Eclectic Living Room – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

Ages ago, back in April, I introduced you to some of the projects I was working on. I can’t always feature every project on the blog. Not because I don’t want to, but time doesn’t always allow me to. Well, that…. and an angry dog that didn’t really like me being in the room I needed to work in. This is the room, on my first visit: It had a great log burner, original chimney breast and stripped floorboards, big bay window and some lovely pieces of furniture. The homeowner’s love of white, vintage finds and Scandi design (baskets) was more than apparent. But she just wasn’t feeling this space at all and couldn’t quite work out why. It’s a north facing room, so doesn’t get the best light. Flat white and grey weren’t doing this space any favours. Their plan was to keep it minimal. But it kinda just felt a bit cold and unfinished. The two seating areas felt disconnected and the L shaped sofa was awkward in the space. So how did I make …

The Office Refit – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

Remember the office refit I was working on? Here’s a lil recap: “I’m working with Visibilis, an Integrated Digital Marketing Agency. It’s my first dip into working in a commercial premises, but it’s good and am enjoying the experience of scaling up! The team of staff has reached capacity at their current office space prompting the move to a new, larger purpose-built office space in a swanky part of Leeds City Centre.” Before And here it was in March. A huge empty space, ready and waiting for its lovely, new residents. A month later, the layout had been solved, colour scheme decided upon, furniture had been ordered… You can read more about the project brief, colour scheme, layout and shopping list here if you’d like to check out the finer details. But to catch you up quickly i’ll post a few pics to give you the low down. Lots of paint + A load of brushes…. …. + Frogtape… + A design from inside my busy mind = Turned out pretty good. If I do say so myself. **performs frilly bow** At …

The Pre – Final Reveal (Preveal)

Published by Karen Knox

I’m not talking much today. It’s just pictures. Pictures of the “Preveal”. The preveal and the shopping list for the living room at the Masonic Villas project. I think it’s good to have everything in one place just incase you actually haven’t been following each and every blog post (how dare you). Anything that doesn’t get a mention means it was already here; artwork, furniture, lighting, this place already had many beautiful vintage and salvaged pieces to work with (lucky me). But let’s take a look at what we added to the mix to pull it all together. Ceiling light – Molecular Light by HouseDoctor Walls – Farrow and Ball Off Black Ceiling & Woodwork – Farrow and Ball Shadow White Black mid century planter – La Redoute Louka Wool rug – La Redoute Bunny Girl Print – Desenio Black Rattan Mirror – La Redoute Crosses Framed Print – made.com Swoosh wall light – French Connection Connor Sofa in Petrol – made.com Dolly tub style planter – Netto (you can read more about my Netto finds …

There is art inside…

Published by Karen Knox

We’ve had a gallery wall at home for the last 18 months. It’s grown a fair bit over that time. As has my taste in art and design in general I guess. Bits and pieces have been added, changed, updated and moved about. Photo by Oliver Gordon It’s not a huge wall, but big enough to do something with. We can’t place furniture here or hang shelves as a door opens onto it. It’s not big enough to take a statement piece of art either because of where the light switch is. It’s a pretty limited space actually, but that hasn’t stopped me having itchy fingers. I wanted something more compact. A more cohesive look. I also wanted to save money by re-using the original frames. So, bright and early on a Sunday morning, the frames were taken down, walls filled and sanded, skirting board masked up, sheets put down and paint pots brought out. I was armed and ready. I’d also already received a cheeky little delivery earlier that week. Cue, Desenio a Stockholm based online art retailer …