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info@fromsal.co.uk
Placemats that look great in a colourful kitchen or neutral scheme!
Looking for placemats that will look good in a colourful or a neutral kitchen? Here's why my illustrated letter placemats rest easy in both settings:
Our illustrated placemats look fantastic with the glazed earth ware espresso cups I bought back from Provence this week. Why? Because they share the same colour palette as French illuminated manuscripts I fell in love with years ago. I talk about this on my 'about me' page.
Take a look at the photo I took of mats and cups laid out together. Vermillion is Mediterranean red. This is the red of Pompeii, just further East along the Med coast. I use to paint my lobster on the 'Bon Appetit' serving mat and elsewhere.
My Green espresso cup is an earthy terre verte, the same shade I used for the green of my mats. For example, the mistletoe on placemat letter M, or the acorn leaves in placemat A.
My choice of blue for all the letters was because the sky is blue and the sea is blue. We are surrounded by blue. My letters are the colour of the cerulean blue Mediterranean, set against a background of unbleached linen. The perfect foil to colour, like the rocks on which we sunbathed a week ago in les calanques de Cassis.
My last espresso cup is earthy yellow which reminds me of the chrome yellow Van Gogh so loved. In the summer of 1888 he writes to his brother Theo that he is painting sunflowers ‘with the same gusto as a marseillais eating bouillabaisse’.
I think a large bol of bouillabaisse would look great sitting on our mats! Splashes of deep orange are everywhere in my mats, Next time I’ll add to my collection and buy some burnt orange tasse d’espresso!
So I am sure you'll agree that our placemats look great in a colourful or a neutral kitchen!
My bespoke illustrations always benefit from a break!
Dear Reader,
When a friend invited me to walk the deepest Gorge in the world, I could not imagine how wonderful a detox adventure it would be! Zagoria is a nature lover's paradise: sun, colour, new plants, new friends, bears and wolves. I managed to empty my mind of stale matter. I return with a new zest for life, inspiration abounding for my bespoke illustrations. Some are illustrations which I add once I have created them. Others are bespoke illustrations which customers have asked to be drawn. I of course remove any personalisation related to that customer to make the illustration relevant to anyone. For example, I drew a jockey on his horse. I kept the racing colours but removed the owner's name from the saddle. So you see how detailed my personalisation can be! You can find these on my website storyboards.
Back to Zagoria and the Vikos Gorge! We were walking non stop so sketching time was brief , as it was the following week when we visited the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides. I grabbed that chance to sketch the dog on the ferry, the one rare moment we sat down!
I took a small flower press to collect some local flowers. The flora in Greece is the same as on the Isle of Lewis. We lived in France for six years and have many European friends so we feel very comfortable being European. Evidently so does British flora as it is the same as flora in Europe. Personalised name prints of wild flowers would be the same on both sides of La Manche or the English Chanel.
What I experienced on this recent break kept reminding me of what I try to communicate through my bespoke illustrations. Seldom do I create a print which is reused. I am passionate about what I do. I aim to share with you over the summer what I hope my gifts can offer. Starting here, I hope you find a minute to stop from your daily grind and absorb something beautiful around you. This may be a friend, a flower, the herbs in your lunchtime sandwich or a tree ! In my case, it is my home office constant companion, the dog.
Thanks for reading this!
Sal
A spring fair
I rarely attend Spring fairs, so it was a fun to be at the Winchester GOLD garden fair yesterday. I so enjoyed it. Spectacular venue, lovely people , a sunny/showery day and everyone was out to shop. Lots of orders for NAME PRINTS - themed ones, ''zooming around,' 'In the garden' , 'On safari" , are especially popular . But in fact a bit of every product sold, many comments about a good range and I love the contact with the public as I gathered a bunchful of new ideas for this new season. 
So I think I will extend my fair season beyond the boundaries of the Christmas rush. Looking forward to finding some smaller ones as somehow they are less stressful!
I hope you are enjoying the kinder weather. This has to be my favourite time of year. All that blossom and flowers appearing after a long wet British winter.
HAPPY 2023 and here’s to the wandering walrus.
The workshop opens again today - Having finally got rid of my Christmas cough, Jan '23 feels energetic and positive! So here is a new coaster I created at the request of Wilfred. I hope he liked his walrus! Did you read about the walrus who landed on some bay on the East Coast of England before New Year? - he'd wandered along way from home. I do hope he makes it back!
Should there be any other designs from my existing illustrated placemats which you would buy on a coaster, to mix or match with any placemat, do email me at info@ fromsal.co.uk .
Wishing you, dear reader, a very happy New Year.
Sal
Our new themed names are zooming around!
Hi
Those of you who have visited my stall at a Christmas fair this season, will have seen my new themed names and are wondering why they are not yet on line - truth is I am so busy, just haven't had time and websites are not my forte! so here is a photo of (me) and my stand at Spirit of Christmas this year - and the themed names hanging on display to the right. They are:
ALICE - doggie friends
FREYA - on safari
ANGUS - by the sea
GEORGE - zooming around
JULIAN - on the farm
FLORA - in the garden
LOVE, JOY, PEACE - or any word of HOPE you wish to hang on your wall to help us all look to the light and not despair, with all that is going on in the world!
ALL these prints are the same price as an illustrated print, such as JOHNNY. So order an illustrated name print, email me at info@fromsal.co.uk telling me you don't want an illustrated name but theme/letter colour, blue or coral and name details and choose ROYAL MAIL SPECIAL DELIVERY GUARANTEED if you want it for Christmas day. Royal mail prioritise this service. I cannot be held accountable for any parcel which does not ask for this service. You can track signed for, but they don't seem to follow up what happens if your parcel is lost!
A BIG thank you to all my customers for liking what I do. This artist's dream is to lighten your day with an image which recalls the good things in life. And From Sal seems to fulfil that - and I love the fairs as that is where we meet face to face and your comments fuel my creativity!
The Crown
What were you doing, 2 weeks ago? perhaps like me ,the car radio alerted you to the Queen’s deteriorating health? A text of a sad face from a french friend - (she was your Queen, to Les français, she was the Queen) told me it had happened. The nation has watched and partaken in the Queen ‘s family mourning and paid respects for her life of service to her country. But it is done , she is in another country now and we are left in safe hands, made clear by King Charles after her departure:
“That promise of lifelong service , I renew to you today.”
May you rest in peace, your Majesty .
The crown is in safe hands . God safe the King . #thecrown #RIPQueenElizabethII #aroyalservant #redpect #duty #paddingtonbear #pleaselookafterthisbear #pleaselookafterthiscrown
‘Grief is the price we pay for Love’.
We all have our story to tell of the Eve September 8 th 2022. I raced all day , sorting stock for fairs, ensuring all at home done as I prepared to join my 3 fabulous sisters on a trip around Scotland visiting childhood haunts. A text from a French (!) friend of 3 sad faces alerted me it had happened … I called my 93 year old mother to break the news, she froze , her contemporary, role model, passed away -I thought my screen had frozen - till mum lifted her head and we talked of light and life and hope . Off the phone, this picture of grieving corgis popped into my head which I quickly sketched before throwing all into the car and departing to my sisters to drive North in the morning. A quick paint before bed and it was done . Just wish I’d not left it at my other sister’s Scottish home, but taken it to leave with our flowers at Balmoral . We all grieve. Poor doggies .
Personalising your print!
Good morning! We have so many windfall apples, already, they remind me of EDMUND who lives on an apple farm and asked for a tractor, his spaniel, a pheasant and loads of apples to decorate his name ( well, the person ordering it did. ) He loved it!
Have you a personal story to illustrate your name with? Our storyboards of illustrations may already have what you are looking forward so worth taking a peek before commissioning new artwork.
A new print has just sailed in!
It is a beautiful, sunny but very blustery day here in rural Oxfordshire. The puppy ( well, 9 months now) and I have been hacking back an over grown kiwi tree as I am terrified it is going to pull the trellis it is now much (was) larger than and land on someone.
Our daughter, home for a few days ( curtesy of online zooming into work), commented "do you like wind? " Well yes I do - thanks to a childhood spent on boats where wind was needed to get anywhere exciting!
Up my ladders in a strong wind, hacking away, wielding a rather efficient, £17 worth pruning saw recently purchased, isn't exactly the same as being on a sailing boat in the Minch, pulling in the mainsail sheet whilst we come up to wind to beat harder and faster... but it can rekindle happy memories! Which is why finding an illustration for letter Y in my illustrated alphabet was incredibly easy .
Yachting Yak. So simple. I see him all the time! In my mind's eye... Now available as a print without the Y. Or as an illustrated letter print, for Yves, my friend who has sailed across the Atlantic. Ah, there is a good gift for him on our next visit to France! .
An Indian summer? –
The heat is still with us, having disappeared for a while - but it is rocketing hot here! So I decided, be it late in the season, to launch some old friends , painted before my now 27 year old daughter was born. I'll call them Seville, as she spent some time there learning the lingo - but there were originally made for some pottery orange and blue plates and cups which have long since bit the dust.
But not these.... hope you enjoy them!
Story Boards
