First a little bit about Gill, She has always been a keen artist since she was very young (which seems to be the case with most creatives, it's in our genes!) Her journey through school was typically acedemic but she chose to study Art at O level (which are now called GCSE's) and A level. This set her up to do an Art foundation course after A levels. She says she had no grand plan to study textiles but with a mixture of Chemistry and Art at A level, Textile studies were suggested to her. She was fairly close to chosing an ATI course but decided it would bore the living daylights out of her so went for a Textile Design and Design Management degree instead, which she loved every moment of it.
After graduating she started working in the textile industry straight away as a printed textiles designer, this involved lots of hard work and travel. After this she took a slightly different path and ended up in sourcing and product development for a few years, before going back to the previous company as a product development and brand manager. So she has plenty of experience in a variety of roles in the textile industry! Which I am sure come in handy when she is designing her own brand and freelancing.
Gill started designing for herself when she moved to France in 2008, I can imagine France is a beautiful place with tons of inspiration!
Gill's inspiration: I am massively drawn to the colouration of vintage textiles and the works of the likes of Eugene Alain Seguy, Zina de Plagny and other designers of similar genres. I also am a big fan of mid-century modern prints and furniture, ethnic /tribal art and mark-making, so I suppose subconsciously I try and fuse all this together in my surface pattern work.
Gill, like me, hand draws all of her work then digitally manipulates it, she finds digital perfection a little off putting and too samey for her own tastes, which I can understand, I love to see the little imperfections in a persons work.
Now for something a bit unusual and cool about Gill, she can order two large beers in a variety of languages, including Chinese! Which she says is most essential for international business travel!
I urge you to all go and have a look at Gill's website which you can find here. Her Illustrations are wonderful and I love the little bugs!
Emma - you are a star thank you for such a great feature!
ReplyDeleteFantastic feature Gill :-)
ReplyDeleteEmma, thanks for sharing the work of such talented woman.
I am in love with all the prints xxx
I love these, especially the last collection. my favorites are the little dots!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fab feature, I love Gill's work. We have something in common, I did art and chemistry too (and also French, but I'm not fluent like Gill must be!)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work Gill. You have a great color sense too. Very nice feature! I really like hearing about the artist behind the designs.
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