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New illustration project: The Waste Ground

Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston
Here’s a preview of some sketches I’ve been working on for an up-coming Dunlin Press project to be published next month.

Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston

The Waste Ground Project is the culmination of a multimedia collaboration. The project is centred on a rumination on life through the prism of liminal spaces – derelict land, brownfield sites – caught between moments of dilapidation and regeneration. The project takes the form a paperback book, a highly limited edition box set, featuring hand-stitched booklets, archival prints and a reliquary, as well as art prints and more.

Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston
These sketches are for the text element of the piece. They accompany beautiful prose written by MW Bewick.
Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston
These black and white wild flower and plant sketches have been created with a brush paint pen. They accompany more detailed fine-liner drawings elsewhere in the piece. I wanted these illustrations to be loose, gestural and quick so they feel like they’ve been captured on the fly.
Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston
Watch this space for more updates.
Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston
Black and white wild flower sketches (c) Ella Johnston

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Real homes: my display shelves

DisplayShelf 2 At Ella’s Place I like to keep things real – especially when it comes to homes stuff. So here’s a peek at my display shelves unit, which lives in my lounge.
DisplayShelf 4 The shelf itself was picked up ages ago at a Habitat sale and I think it was about £100. We loved the bright red colour and its different sized square and rectangular cubby holes – great for both books and little bits and pieces. 
DisplayShelf 3

We’ve filled a lot of the cubby holes with mini art and design books, vintage plays and poetry collections, a complete edition of the 1974 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which we got from a neighbour.  We’ve placed various ceramics we’ve picked up over the years in the rest of the shelves. We’ve also used the unit as a home for some of our various characters from our menagerie – you can read about their back stories here and here
DisplayShelfI designed the fabric for the floor lamp to suite in with the shelving, everything else in the room is rather dark so both the unit and lighting provide a little pop of colour we need.  I made this light with a Dannells Floor Lamp Making Kit and got the fabric printed via Spoonflower.