Just sold this splendid print by veteran British artist Peter Blake from our current On View display in conjunction with IAP Fine Art. A silkscreen on paper with glazes and diamond dust it is no.147 from the edition of 175.

This is a clever work - it references Warhol (Marilyn and the use of diamond dust), the iconic 'Black Square painting by Malevich (1915), while the composition recalls the abstractions of Rothko.

Presented in a hand finished box frame using conservation grade materials, the poplar wood was hand painted in Paean Black from Farrow & Ball. This particular colour is not black, rather a very deep purple. It preserves the intensity of the black square in the print composition and picks up on the band of purple above it.

From our last open studio event with IAP Fine Art we were commissioned to design a mirror to hang over a fireplace in a North London Home. The room is painted with Little Green's North Brink Grey, has dark oak flooring and contains a number of paintings including two works by Roy Conn (1931 - 2018). The Victorian mantlepiece is in a beautiful grey green marble.

We visited the house and began consultations with our client. We decided to focus on one of the paintings, a vivid hard edge abstract in acrylic. The mirror would be the same size as the painting, be constructed in oak and stained to correspond with the floor. We used the design of our Strip Mirrors as a template with the mirrored panel 'floating' inside the frame. Next we chose four colours from the Little Green range for the strips and finally a green for the frame interior.

There were no colours in the LG range to match the green in the painting, so we mixed one up using artists acrylics. We then made a series of studies to decide the order of colours and positions of the strips and made a second visit before going ahead with the next stage. We chose Pompeian Ash, Dock Blue, Chimney Brick and Obsidian Green for the strips which would be configured in a clockwise spiral. This gives a sense of subtle movement to the design.

We will post more on this unique mirror soon.

Maggi Hambling Portrait of Derek Jarman. Photography by Guy Lockwood.

This mirror began as a response to a painting by the American abstract artist Gene Davies (1920 - 1985). The work is in two parts, a mirror with polished edges and a hand painted panel consisting of stripes using the range of colours in his painting. We changed the widths of the individual stripes, each of which were individually cut and painted using colours from the range by Farrow & Ball.

The stripes were then pinned to a backing board and trimmed to fit into one of two tray frames made in solid beech wood. The frames were hand finished and have walnut plugs on the corners.
The mirror was bonded to a board and mounted into the second frame. Finally both frames were fitted with split battens on all four sides on the reverse of each frame. The battens can either be rested on screws, or on a corresponding batten so they hang flush on the wall. The use of battens also means that the framed panels can slide laterally and that each unit can be displayed in a landscape or portrait format.  

This post shows the development of a recently completed unique mirror - Ghirlandaio (Portrait of a Girl). The starting point was a postcard of a mirror image of the painting in the National Gallery, London - then colour samples were placed next to the image to get a feel for the overall palette. 

Next, following some inital sketches, the mirror frame was constructed in beech wood incorporating three of the postcards and painted cardboard panels to represent the final glazed versions. After rejecting a horizontal reading, the images were arranged vertically. This layout is a reference to the Medici Princess boxes by Joseph Cornell, though they also have a contemporary  photo booth quality which also reminded me of Warhol. 

Various colourways were tried and rejected for the facing on the frame and the glass panels. Finally the painted mirror frame become a sub-frame with the addition of a stained oak outer frame. This, with the corner details provided the finishing touch.

This mirror is now available to purchase though IAP Fine Art, based in London and Monmouth. Our own webpage is here.

This is a new set of multi-part mirrors and panels inspired by The Ru Ware Project, a set of nine paintings executed between 2007-2012 by Brice Marden. The title derives from Marden's experience of viewing an exhibition of the famously scarce Ru Ware ceramics in Taipei. These ceramics were made in China for a short period around 1100 and were highly prized then and now. Marden was intrigued by the colour shifts he witnessed and on his return to the USA he sought to capture his impression from memory. 

While Marden's work is dislayed in a horizontal line, the mirrors and panels can be arranged in a multitude of ways using the full nine units or fewer and they can also be rearranged as desired. The slides show three completed units, a detail and test samples. The panels have been hand painted using the lovely chalky paint from Edward Bulmer. The colours used in the first photograph are Aquatic and Vert de Mer - these and the other colours are very similar to the colours Marden used in his set of paintings.

​As a point of interest there are twenty-one of these pieces in Taipei, however the British Museum has seventeen, including those in the Percival David Collection. Fewer than one hundred of these ceramics are known to have survived. 

We have just started working on a commission for a bedroom in a London house. It is a shelf mirror made to a specific size, namely 780 x 530mm, and the oak will be tinted to match a vintage wardrobe in the room. Rather than our standard mitre joint this mirror will feature lap joints at the top to echo the doors of the wardrobe.
The requested shelf depth will be 100mm and will feature a detachable oak veneer insert. As with the laminate and metal inserts, should the owner wish to change the appearance of the shelf at some future point in time the oak insert may be swapped for another to achieve an entirely different look. The photographs show a test lap joint in unstained American white oak, a detail of the wardrobe and our standard shelf mirror with a blue laminate insert.